‘She was so tiny’: Agonised family see Perth woman detained in Japan

Donna Nelson’s daughter has described the heart-wrenching moment she saw her mother for the first time in more than 18 months.

Kristal Hilare attended a pre-trial court hearing in Tokyo to support her mother, an Indigenous community leader who once ran as a federal candidate for the Greens, and who is now fighting a charge of smuggling drugs.

Her daughter was not allowed to communicate with the 58-year-old.

“We just stared at each other. She was in tears. I was just trying to smile and look at her and relay that it was OK,” Hilare said.

“You can’t wave or signal, anything to be seen to be communicating in any type of way.

“She’s so much smaller … she just looked so tiny.

“I just felt so wrong to leave the room and not be able to give her a hug or not be able to say anything to her.”

“You can tell that she doesn’t get out in the sun. She did look pale, she has more grey hair; she still looked beautiful.

“She had been wearing clothes that I had sent for her for court, and they were a little bit big on her.”

Nelson is being kept in a cell inside Chiba Prison for 23 hours a day while she waits for a trial date after being arrested at Narita Airport in January 2023 with two kilograms of methamphetamine hidden in a suitcase.

Australian Embassy staff accompanied her during the 30-minute hearing during which questions were asked about Nelson’s strict communication ban.

Aside from her lawyers, Embassy Staff and a pastor, the only person allowed to visit Nelson has been her three-year-old granddaughter.

It’s understood the child remained behind secure glass during the visit, which family described as ‘bittersweet’.

Hilare travelled with her husband and daughter to Tokyo last month to support Nelson during her trial, only to have it delayed at the last minute, with no update on timing.

Nelson’s lawyers will argue she didn’t know the drugs were in the suitcase.

Her family has said she was groomed for two years by a Nigerian love scammer, and was either forced or tricked into carrying the meth by the man she had fallen for, known only as “Kelly”.

Nelson first travelled to Japan to meet Kelly after the pair met through an online dating site called AfroIntroductions.

He claimed to be the owner of a couture brand and eventually allegedly convinced Nelson to visit him, buying business-class tickets to fly her to Tokyo via Singapore, Laos and Vietnam.

Her family believes it was during her three-day stop in Laos that Nelson met with an associate of “Kelly” and came to be in possession of the bag that Japanese authorities later uncovered at the airport.

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