London - The British Foreign Office last night rejected a report that the Scottish nurse sentenced to 500 lashes and eight years in jail for her alleged part in the murder of an Australian colleague in Saudia Arabia had gone on hunger strike. Lucille McLauchlan (31), from Dundee, was said to have refused all food since last Tuesday in protest at the Saudi authorities' refusal to allow her to make a phone call to her parents. However, a Foreign Office spokesman said that when she was visited yesterday by the British consul in Al Khobar, Ms McLauchlan told him she had decided not to go on hunger strike.
Her co-accused, Deborah Parry (38), is still awaiting sentence. The two were accused of the murder of the Australian nurse, Yvonne Guilford, last December. Ms Parry faces a possible death sentence and her fate is the subject of high-level contacts between London and Riyadh.