Tori Towey reveals Dubai jailer tried to yank out piercing from physique

Freed air stewardess Tori Towey has revealed how she tried to escape her allegedly abusive husband before being arrested and strip-searched by Dubai cops who charged her with attempted suicide.

Irishwoman Towey, 28, was charged with alcohol abuse and attempted suicide on June 28 after she was allegedly attacked by her South African husband in their Dubai home in a case that sparked international outrage.

Her passport was blocked by Dubai authorities, preventing Towey, from County Roscommon, from returning home to her family in Ireland and sparking fears she was headed towards a jail term in a hellhole Emirati prison.

She was finally allowed to return to her family in Ireland on Thursday, and has now revealed the full extent of her horrific ordeal in the UAE. 

Towey, speaking on a Live Space on X this morning, described the moment she ran from her home and had her neighbours call for emergency services, after she claimed her husband beat her up, leaving her with horrific injuries. 

The pair were taken to a police station, where they gave their statements, before she was told to report to a ‘special hospital’ to undergo a medical assessment. 

After finding out that her husband would continue to be detained following the domestic abuse claim, she was told to return to her home after her medical exam by a ‘criminal investigator.’

Thinking she was safe, she said she arrived back at home only to find ‘everything had been moved in the house.’

‘I knew he had been there’, she said. 

After a few minutes, her allegedly abusive husband turned with ‘workmen to try and change the locks.’ 

‘I never got notified that he was going to get released’, she claimed. 

According to lawyer Rahda Stirling, who worked with Towey to get her release, the Irishwoman tried to take her own life after this. 

Towey said she woke up to several police officers and paramedics surrounding her while ‘I was in my pajamas’. 

After being given oxygen, ‘they handed me a green dress of mine, and they just put me in the police car and brought me to the station.’

There, cops ‘strip searched me, they took all my jewellery off. 

‘I had a belly button piercing and they were struggling to take it out. They were pulling at it and ripping at it, and hurting me. I was saying ‘Look it’s okay, i’ll take it out myself’.

‘It was just not nice at all. They were aggressive and they don’t speak to you – they don’t tell you what’s happening.’

Towey said she was taken down a ‘tiny corridor with these individual cells with mattresses on the floor’, along with other female prisoners. 

‘Some of them were there for seven months in this tiny little corridor with a mattress on the floor. They hadn’t been told what was happening to them. They were there for very minor things. 

‘That’s when I started to panic. I started to think “I could be here for months”.’

Adding to her anxiety was the living situation. She was not provided with new clothes or toiletries: ‘You don’t have toothbrushes, you don’t get clothes, you need money in there to pay for everything.

‘Unless you have family outside to bring you in some clothes and toiletries, you’re not given anything. If you don’t know anyone, you’re gonna be in the same clothes for months with nothing.’

Tori added that the lights in the cells are ‘so bright, they’re like surgical rooms.

‘They don’t turn them off even when you try to sleep, the lights were on constantly.’

Tori’s husband has not yet been publicly identified, nor has he responded to the claims she made today.  

Tori flew into Dublin Airport yesterday evening with her mother Caroline, and expressed her gratitude to those who helped her get home, including the Irish embassy and the media. ‘Without you guys, I wouldn’t be here right now’, she told journalists.

In a statement, the Government of Dubai’s media office said: ‘Dubai Public Prosecution has closed the case involving Irish national Tori Towey after she and her husband, a South African national, were involved in a case featuring mutual charges of assault, dating back to May 2024.

‘The couple reached a reconciliation and withdrew the complaints filed against each other.

‘Dubai Public Prosecution has also dropped the charges of attempted suicide against her considering the circumstances of the case and to enable her to return to normal life.’

Speaking about her travel ban being lifted Detained in Dubai CEO Radha Stirling said: ‘She is thrilled and relieved. She said she is over the moon and looking forward to getting home to Ireland and seeing the rest of her family.

‘She is a little nervous too because there is that worry that something could happen before she gets on a plane but the overriding feeling is one of joy.’

Ms Towey’s family had thanked the Irish government and campaigners for their help, with her mum Caroline telling MailOnline the support ‘has been incredible’.

Caroline said: ‘The support from the Irish government and the Irish people has been incredible and we weren’t expecting it at all. It’s a small country and the politicians are real people.

‘We are both exhausted and desperate to get home. Thank you so much to everyone supporting us.’

She added that her daughter had been through ‘the worst time of her life and needs to come home with me and heal’.

Tori’s aunt Ann Flynn also told Sky News: ‘She’s doing her best. It’s very stressful, stressful for all the family.

‘Tori’s a beautiful young woman, fun-loving, loves to travel. She got the job of her dreams working for Emirates, and she could continue travelling with work.’

‘It’s really terrible that this has happened to a young woman who was full of life and full of adventure.’