A British woman locked up in Dubai after being caught in bed with a banker was released last night – after spending 30 days sharing a filthy mattress in a cell with her Brazilian love rival.
Amazingly, during their incarceration in a basement holding pen at a police station, Danielle Spencer and model Priscila Ferreira became firm friends.
Ms Spencer, 31, had been spending the night with Toby Carroll when his girlfriend Ms Ferreira burst in and threatened them at knifepoint.
Party girl: Danielle Spencer, 31, underwater for a modelling shoot
Danielle Spencer: School picture from Hull in 1987
Mr Carroll called police and all three were arrested – Ms Ferreira, 24, for criminal damage and Ms Spencer and Mr Carroll on suspicion of having sex outside of marriage, a crime in the Arab country.
Ms Spencer said last night: ‘This is the best feeling, I am so happy to be out at last. I just want a big drink, a soak in a bath and a sleep in a proper bed. That will feel bliss.’
She and Ms Ferreira spent a month sharing a bed in a cell with 70 other inmates in the notorious Bur Dubai police station. Ms Ferreira was still in jail last night because
she could not find anyone to provide a passport for her surety. It was anticipated the model, who turns 25 today, will be released imminently.
Last night, in an exclusive interview with The Mail on Sunday, former pole-dancer Ms Spencer, from Hull, told how she and Ms Ferreira forged their unlikely friendship.
She said: ‘We just had to become friends because it was such a terrible experience. All we had was each other for comfort and at night we would huddle together on our mattress, scared out of our lives. We were in a stinking room with murderers. I got to know Priscila well and like her. There are no hard feelings. I have forgiven her for what she did.
‘We have both laughed at the irony of it – I locked myself in the bathroom to get away from her when she went crazy with the knife and now I realise that she is the safest person to be with here in prison.’
The Mail on Sunday had been with Ms Spencer as she negotiated her release.
She said: ‘The authorities needed two passports – mine and one from someone resident in Dubai. We were frantically ringing around trying to find someone.’
JEALOUS MODEL 'WHO SLASHED THE CURTAINS'
This is the first picture of the beautiful Brazilian model at the centre of the Dubai love triangle.
Priscila Ferreira, 24, found her former boyfriend Toby Carroll in bed with Danielle Spencer and allegedly terrorised them with a knife, slashing the curtains in his flat.
Sources in Mr Carroll’s native New Zealand say he had dumped Ms Ferreira a few hours earlier.
Shortly before startling the pair in Mr Carroll’s flat, Ms Ferreira apparently edited her Facebook page, changing her relationship status to ‘single’.
But last night she told The Mail on Sunday they had not split up and were going to get married.
‘I’m normally a calm person, we just had a row,’ she said, as she tried to negotiate her release.
‘I’ve made lots of friends while I’ve been in custody, including Danielle. It’s the only way to survive.’
Most of the photos of her on her Facebook site were shot in Dubai and show her in a glamorous gown, striking modelling poses.
Under one of them, someone has blogged, ‘Toby Carroll’. In an accompanying comment, Ms Ferreira wrote, ‘She’s the one.’
An acquaintance of Toby Carroll said that he was ‘vain’ and a ‘risk-taker,’ who may have ‘fallen into the heavy-drinking expat scene.’
Commenting on his relationship with Ms Ferreira, the friend said: ‘If I ever see him again my advice will be to stay away from South American girls.’
Yesterday afternoon they were taken from Bur Dubai to another police station, where they were met by New Zealander Mr Carroll. He greeted Ms Spencer’s mother Angela saying: ‘I’m so sorry about this, I really am.’
Ms Ferreira angrily denied reports she had been dumped by Mr Carroll a day before she caught him in bed with Ms Spencer. She told The Mail on Sunday: ‘We hadn’t split up, we’d had an argument. We have been seeing each other for five years and were going to get married.
We used to live in Spain and moved here together a year ago. Obviously I am no longer with him now but he is still a friend. He is helping me to get a passport so I can be freed and letting me use his phone to call my mother.
‘I am a model here on the catwalk but I have just started a media company.’
There was an emotional reunion between Ms Spencer and her mother. ‘I’m so glad to see you, Mum,’ she said tearfully. Her mother replied: ‘I’m so glad you’re safe.’
Party: Danielle Spencer with her mother Angela Genta at the Meridian Hotel Dubai in 2007
Ms Spencer said she heard she was going to be released last Thursday in a call from Dubai’s chief prosecutor.
‘He said, “You have done very bad things, Danielle, but we are going to let you out on bail if you promise to be good.” I said that, of course, I would be.’
Earlier, while at Bur Dubai, she said: ‘It has been a nightmare. I did not even have sex with that guy. The conditions are terrible, so cramped, and they put tranquillisers in the food. I spend all day sitting on the floor, in the dark, underground. It’s so disgusting.
‘We can only have a bath once a week. There are insects everywhere. There are women in here with babies, poor little things. There are no windows, no fresh air. Some women here were arrested for trying to commit suicide.’
Mr Carroll was bailed last Thursday. He and Ms Spencer may be charged with having sex outside marriage, which can carry a jail term. No charges have been filed against any of the three.
Police inquiries are continuing and it is expected that the three will be called before a prosecutor in the next few weeks.
Friend Suzanna Hargreaves, 28, said that when she visited Ms Spencer she was ‘painfully thin’.
Ex-flatmate Debbie Burgess, 30, said: ‘This is somebody who is used to the finer things in life: power showers, having her nails done, long lunches by the marina.’
Estate agent and yacht saleswoman Danielle had met £100,000-a-year property analyst Mr Carroll in a bar. She agreed to go on a dinner date two days before Christmas, unaware that he was already involved with Ms Ferreira.
Police have taken swabs from Ms Spencer in an attempt to prove that sexual intercourse took place.
She added: ‘I would be disappointed in her if she did have sex with someone on a first date.’
When she arrived in the Gulf six years ago after a round-the-world trip, Ms Spencer, the daughter of a merchant seaman, threw herself into the glamorous expat lifestyle. She lost her Hull accent and had a breast enlargement.
Her arrest has seen her lose her job selling yachts, and friends say she is resigned to deportation.
Toby's an amazing guy, a gentleman in every way
Carroll and his ex-girlfriend Anna Jobsz in Auckland, New Zealand in March 2005
The mother of banker Toby Carroll – who was caught with Danielle Spencer – yesterday said her son’s image as a playboy love rat was undeserved.
Beverley Carroll said: ‘He hasn’t done anything that any guy in any other country wouldn’t do. He has slept with a girl, it was sex outside of marriage and there is no other country where that is a crime. I’m extremely proud of my son – he hasn’t done anything wrong.’
Mr Carroll’s former girlfriend Anna Jobsz, left, who dated the New Zealander several years ago, expressed shock at his arrest. Ms Jobsz, 30, said: ‘Toby is a top character and a gentleman in every way.’
In his home city of Auckland others described Mr Carroll as a fun-loving ‘party boy’ who was dedicated to his job. One friend recalled: ‘He was a snappy dresser. His looks were important and he liked women, but he wasn’t a womaniser.’
Mr Carroll moved to Dubai five years ago to forge a career as a £100,000-a-year HSBC analyst. He was released on police bail last week.