STEPHEN Tse Kwok-yau blinked back tears last night as he remembered his studious, piano-playing daughter now languishing in a Bangkok jail.
''I miss her. I miss her in my heart,'' said Mr Tse at the comfortable Mei Foo Sun Chuen home he shares with his mother, brother, sister-in-law and two sons.
''She was not guilty. She would not have done something like this. She was so young.'' As he flicked through photographs of the plump, tall, bespectacled, clean-living girl, he recalled how Michelle had set her heart on studying at law school in Canada.
She had gone to Thailand with a friend for a holiday after graduating from Tak Ching Catholic School for Girls. She was accompanied by a classmate, who had been expelled from the school just before graduation.
The friend, whom police believe now lives in Macau, introduced Michelle to a Thai acquaintance on the plane. Once in Bangkok, the Thai man introduced them to a friend of his, who became their tour guide.
''Michelle told us that when she was stopped at customs this man's jacket was in her suitcase. It had drugs in it. She didn't know how it got there.