CLEAR evidence of the bitter divisions between freed British nurses Deborah Parry and Lucille McLauchlan emerge today in their separate accounts of their Saudi Arabian ordeal.
As Parry, 39, of Alton, Hampshire, and McLauchlan, 32, from Dundee, enjoyed their second day of freedom after spending 17 months in prison after being convicted over the murder of Australian colleague, Yvonne Gilford, Parry confirmed reports of a rift between the two.
She turned against McLauchlan in the Express, saying she could not bear her. ''I feel that Lucy would have been quite happy to go off home and leave me there to get my head chopped off,'' she is reported as saying.
Parry added: ''At first I tried to get on with her when we were sharing a cell. But as the realism began to hit me of what she had done - falsely claiming I had stabbed Yvonne, whatever the police pressure on her - I could not bear her.''
McLauchlan, in turn, told the Mirror that bitterness built up between her and Parry in jail. ''It was as if Debbie wanted someone to blame,'' she said. ''And it was easier for her to blame me for signing a confession than face up to our situation.''
Meanwhile, the nurses were last night facing new ''trials'': one by their profession's governing body and another by public scrutiny amid Saudi Arabian claims that their allegations of sexual abuse were laughable.
The inquiry by the UK Central Council for Nursing follows a formal complaint against them by Glasgow Kelvin Labour MP George Galloway.
Mr Galloway said his complaint was in the public interest. He said: ''If it had been a British conviction they would have done so automatically. I want them struck off.''
The Saudi claims were made by Ambassador Ghazi Algosaibi, who said ''anyone with even the slightest knowledge of Saudi society, its deeply religious and conservative nature, will realise that any allegations of sexual abuse are laughable''.
Apart from a conviction for her part in Ms Gilford's death - for which she was sentenced to eight years and 500 lashes - McLauchlan, 32, from Dundee, has been summoned to appear at Dundee Sheriff Court next month charged with stealing #1740 from a dying Aids patient.
The nurses have sold their stories for sums said to total #160,000. The Press Complaints Commission is to investigate, but McLauchlan defended the payment.
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