spoken of her "nine-month nightmare'' on the Island.

Paula Madill told the Calgary Sun that her dream trip ended in disaster after she was arrested on drugs allegations, which ended in her spending nine months behind bars on remand.

The Calgary mother of a seven-year-old daughter said her ordeal ended when a judge dismissed charges of conspiring to import $150,000 of cocaine.

"I am just grateful to be home and grateful to my friends who gave me their support while I was there,'' Paula Madill told the Calgary Sun.

Madill, 34, of Calgary, had just quit her waitressing job last summer when she was approached by a new acquaintance, Wayne Maximchuk, who offered to take her on an exotic trip.

"He asked if I would like to go to Jamaica, then Bermuda, with him,'' she said. "But had I known he had $150,000 worth of cocaine in his belly, I would have had nothing to do with him.'' After briefly stopping in Jamaica, the couple arrived in Hamilton, Bermuda, on June 29. Madill was arrested along with Maximchuk after a Police raid on the hotel they were staying at.

She said after being questioned for more than an hour at the hotel, the couple was taken to hospital and forced to drink a quantity of laxative.

"I spent most of the 24 hours proving to Police I had no drugs -- I went to the bathroom 17 times in ten hours and even had X-rays,'' she said.

Maximchuk, 44, who had swallowed 78 packets of cocaine, admitted in court he had brought drugs into Bermuda before and was sentenced to seven and a half years in prison.

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