A TikToker has been compelled to refute claims that she is the British law student imprisoned for life in Dubai after allegedly being discovered with 50g of cocaine.
Mia O’Brien, a British woman who creates social media content, has recently witnessed a surge of new followers flocking to her TikTok account, wrongly identifying her as the incarcerated individual in Dubai.
The TikToker shares an identical name with young British student Mia O’Brien, who received a life sentence and was imprisoned for 25 years after she was purportedly found with £2,500 worth of the Class A substance in October. The news comes as a British couple detained in Iran were ‘whisked away’ to court as family issues plea.
Law student Mia, from Liverpool, entered a not guilty plea but was dispatched to Dubai Central Prison, where she resides alongside six other prisoners.
The identical names of both women has sparked bewilderment on social media platforms, as TikToker Mia’s most recent upload has been inundated with individuals who seem to have mistaken her identity with the young Briton making headlines, reports the Mirror.
The TikToker’s comments area witnessed numerous people questioning whether she was imprisoned in Dubai.
One individual remarked: “U not in jail.”
Another person penned: “Is this how Dubai jail looks like ?”.
TikToker Mia clarified the situation and replied to one of these commenters to confirm she was not the same individual.
A TikToker enquired: “why didn’t you research the laws of Dubai.”
Mia replied: “I’m not in prison”, and included a red heart emoji at the conclusion of her response.
The mistaken identity was recognised by someone who remarked: “Anyone looking for Dubai girl? ? ?”.
Another TikToker replied and stated: “Your view count’s about to go up.”
Following the conviction of 23 year old British student Mia O’Brien on 25 July, who was fined £100,000 and sent to the notorious Dubai Central prison after a one-day hearing, she was arrested when 50g of cocaine was allegedly found in her flat in “one big chunk”.
She was nicked alongside her mate and her friend’s boyfriend – all three were charged with drug dealing. Mia’s mum, Danielle McKenna, initially set up a GoFundMe to raise funds to try and bring her daughter back home but the page was taken down on Friday for breaching community rules.
A spokesperson for GoFundMe, commenting on the original fundraiser being deleted, said: “It was removed because it violates Term 9 of the Prohibited Conduct section in our Terms of Service. Term 9 prohibits raising funds on GoFundMe for the legal defence of certain alleged crimes.”
Now, the mum has posted her bank details on Facebook and asked people to donate money directly to her. Danielle said: “I am going to set up my own, as they [GoFundMe] are nitpicking at everything.”
The mum then said direct donations would allow her to keep all the money instead or giving a cut to GoFundMe. She added: “I would just like to thank everyone.”
In the original GoFundMe page, the devastated mother wrote: “Mia is only 23 years old and has never done a bad thing in her life. This is a young girl, who went to university to do law, and unfortunately got mixed up in the wrong so-called friends and made a very stupid mistake and is now paying the price.”