A pregnant British woman at the centre of the gypsy saga gripping New Zealand says she has been vomiting blood since being locked up for stealing four cans of Red Bull.
Tina Marie Cash, who is seven months pregnant, claims to have been placed in a cell with a violent criminal after being arrested earlier this week.
‘I was in a cell with a woman who got 13 years for armed robbery. I told her what I was in for and she burst out laughing,’ Ms Cash told Daily Mail Australia on Saturday.
A pregnant British woman at the centre of the gypsy saga gripping New Zealand says she has been vomiting blood since being locked up for stealing four cans of Red Bull
The woman, 55, was captured alongside a 15-year-old girl in the small town of Levin, 90km north of Wellington, on Saturday morning
Although the family previously suggested they didn’t have access to a car, the group was seen getting into a black seven-seat vehicle
The matriarch also claimed her family had been harassed by ordinary people, who had been taking photos of the group from their cars, yelling racist slurs and laughing at them
‘I only pleaded guilty so I could pay a $55 fine and leave, otherwise they were going to keep me in for two weeks and deport me.’
Cash claims she has been vomiting blood since her arrest, and family patriarch James Johnson says he is out of heart medication, but both say they are too afraid to go to the doctor.
Ms Cash, who pleaded guilty to stealing four red bulls in Hamilton Court, on New Zealand’s North Island last week, claims the family have been treated with no respect.
‘If people come to the UK, they have rights,’ she said. ‘What are our rights here? We have none,’ she said.
Since their arrival in New Zealand last week, the family from Banbury in Oxfordshire, in the north of London have gripped the country’s attention.
The saga began with a now-viral video which saw a child in the group threaten to ‘knock the brains out’ of locals on an Auckland beach.
Since their arrival in New Zealand last week, the family have gripped the country’s attention, beginning with a now-viral video at an Auckland beach
Tina Marie Cash, who is seven months pregnant, claims to have been placed in a cell with a violent criminal after being arrested earlier this week
The now-viral video saw a child in the group threaten to ‘knock the brains out’ of locals on an Auckland beach
The family now say they have been inundated with death threats, sexist slurs and claim a $5,000 bounty has been put on the head of their 18-year-old son.
Now, Mr Johnson has claimed the clip was taken completely out of context and his own family had been the real victims.
‘We had to flee for our life,’ he told Daily Mail Australia.
‘Our seven-year-old grandson was hit at the beach. We asked ‘could you stop hitting him and pinning him against the tree’, and they called us all sorts of names and threatened us.
‘That’s why we couldn’t pick the rubbish up.’
The group also rebutted allegations they are linked to a powerful British crime family, adding these claims have put them in even more danger with calls for them to be attacked by local gangs.
The establishments where the group of British tourists have reportedly had complaints about their behaviour during their stay in New Zealand
Mr Johnson said since reports on the family’s alleged thieving and littering started gaining traction, they have been forced into hiding.
‘For two days in this country we’ve been hiding in mountains, everything,’ he said.
‘We’ve been tortured. We’ve done nothing wrong.’
Mr Johnson said his family had saved for ‘a year’ to come to New Zealand, and their holidays had been ruined by white New Zealanders.
As threats continue to be made against the controversial family, the matriarch, who has not been named, says she is unable to sleep because she is too frightened to close her eyes.
One family member said his family had saved for ‘a year’ to come to New Zealand, and their holidays had been ruined by white New Zealanders
The family claim to have been forced to ‘hide in the mountains’ north of Wellington since the media storm began
The woman, 55, was captured alongside a 15-year-old girl in the small town of Levin, 90km north of Wellington, on Saturday morning.
Although the family previously suggested they didn’t have access to a car, the group was seen getting into a black seven-seat vehicle.
The matriarch also claimed her family had been harassed by ordinary people, who had been taking photos of the group from their cars, yelling racist slurs and laughing at them.
‘I’m very very frightened, honestly,’ she said.
She claims she has ‘never in her life’ entered a restaurant without paying.
‘I’m a grandmother, I’ve got a lot of grandchildren,’ she said.
‘I’m not going to go and get food without paying for it. I’m not going to put myself that low.
‘If I haven’t got the money, I would not go in to that restaurant. I would not go into a shop if I hadn’t got the money to pay for something that I want.
‘I’ve never done it in England, I’m not going to come and do it here.’
Her comments come after Auckland theme park Spookers admitted they ‘went too far’ in posting a video showing two zombies attacking Mr Johnson, killing him shouting ‘die boy’ and ‘time to go home’.
The British tourists who were allegedly hiding and fearing for their lives in the mountains were walking through supermarkets in their pyjamas and threatening to ‘slit throats’.
Locals told Daily Mail Australia the family had not been laying very low at all.
One woman claimed she had seen the family strolling through a local supermarket in Levin about 8.30pm on Friday, despite reports they were deep in the mountainside.
‘They were all dressed in their pyjamas,’ she said.
One woman confronted the family with a camera on Saturday morning and claims one man from the clan told her: ‘The next cameraman I see, I’ll slit his throat’.
‘He got up in my face before snatching my phone out of my bag to check if I was recording,’ she said.
‘Even when he saw it was off he kept ranting.
‘His own relatives were telling him to calm down – it was really aggressive.’
The manager of the Levin motel the family had been hiding out in declined to go into detail when they were approached for comment on their behaviour.
But the manager was seen interacting with them on Saturday.