A student who made the headlines after being jailed for dancing topless on a Greek island has embarked on a career as a journalist, writes Dominic Ponsford.
Jemma Gunning, left, was this week doing work experience at the Bath Chronicle and she decided to give the paper an exclusive account of her ordeal at the hands of the Greek authorities.
She decided to go to her local paper, rather than the nationals, after being unhappy at the way she was treated by the tabloids.
Gunning ended up in jail after taking part in a Faliraki nightclub’s “Eurovision Thong Contest” in August. Police arrested her and sentenced her to eight months in prison unless she could pay a €2,500 (£1,760) fine as part of a clampdown on rowdy behaviour by Brits.
Gunning said: “I know I’m going to have to start at the bottom just like everybody else. But I would never, ever want to work for one of the redtops after the way they treated me.”
Her ordeal started after she had been on the holiday island for only a few days.
She said: “I was arrested on Monday night and I thought I was going to have to stay there for eight months. In court there were a lot of journalists listening to my case and I agreed to give The Sun an exclusive because they said they would pay my fine.
“But when we went to pay the fine, the clerk wanted to go home and said we only had 15 minutes – but that wasn’t enough time for them to get the money together. I had to go back to the police station for another night.”
Gunning’s parents ended up bailing her out after she had spent two nights in the cells.
On returning to the UK, she found she continued to be in the media spotlight. She said: “I didn’t think for one moment that the attention would also be there when I got home. I do feel like I have had a bad press and there were a lot of lies. I felt I was portrayed in a way that I am not.”
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