He said after meeting with Thanongsak Pongprasert that he would use this incident as a lesson and was ready to take responsibility for what he had done.

Meanwhile Pol Colonel Alongkorn Sirisongkram, of Prawes district police station, said that Bartling would be summonsed to meet police on Wednesday as he was alleged to have broken railway rules in connection with his latest video clip.

The summons followed a complaint by State Railway station officials that he broke the Railway Act by entering SRT lands without permission and damaging the railway’s property.

Bartling and a friend were seen in a video clip posted on the internet placing several coins on a railway track and waiting for a train to run over them.

He said in the clip that he wanted to test the strength of the coins to know which country’s coins were the strongest.

His video drew negative criticism, with many writing that he should find something useful to do.

Several homes were also damaged by fallen trees due to gusty winds.

The cost of damage caused by the storm – which struck from 3am to 6am and was followed by heavy rain until almost 10am -– was at least Bt10 million, according to a village headman, Khomtawan Sangkaew, in Tambon Pang Wan.

Many durian growers affected by the storm feared that they would not get any compensation from the authorities. Under the compensation rules, each grower must lose at least one rai of production, so some farmers who have lost up to 10 trees may not be eligible,

Pisit, who offered his legal service to the girl’s mother for free, told police that he deducted a Bt500,000 lawyer’s fee from the Bt4 million compensation he had received on the victim’s behalf, city police chief Lt-General Sanit Mahathavorn told a press conference on Monday. He claimed the money was to fund his PhD education, Sanit said.

Pisit also sent Bt3.5 million to his close female friend Pornpaveen Chukaew to help with her financial problems, Sanit said.

Pornpaveen, 44, is currently jailed over a separate drug case involving 500,000 yaba pills in Chumpon after her arrest in April.

Police previously filed charges against her for this case.

Pisit, 59, and another close female friend named Thitapa, or Pattharawadee Sawasdee, 39, were nabbed at about 3am on Monday in a condominium parking lot in Soi Ram-Indra 125 in Bangkok’s Min Buri district.

Taling Chan provincial court had earlier issued arrest warrants for the duo, along with Pornpaveen for using a forged document to cheat Porntip Chantharat, 44, and her wheelchair-bound 14-year-old daughter, Pattarada “Beam” Kaewpong, out of Bt4 million in compensation following a 2005 road accident.

Porntip, who identified the two suspects, said she was glad that police had finally captured Pisit. She said she wished to ask him whether this was the way to deliver on his promise of giving his “best effort to help” her family.

After the police interrogation, Porntip and her daughter talked with Pisit and Thitapa behind closed door for two hours.

Porntip said later that Pisit apologised to her but she did not say much to him.

Porntip admitted she worries whether they will get the compensation money back.

Saying that the authorities’ attempts to retrieve the assets to repay the damaged persons would take some time, city police chief Sanit presented a sum of assistance money from his own pocket to Porntip to help with the family’s expenses.

When reports of the alleged swindle surfaced, the Lawyers Council of Thailand (LCT) stripped Pisit from its list of qualified practitioners on the grounds that he was declared insolvent.

Porntip has launched a civil lawsuit against Pisit to seek compensation. The trial is set to begin on August 28.

Pisit and Pornpaveen have no assets to be seized and sold to repay Porntip’s family, an initial check by the lawyer’s council found, a source said.

Sanit said police officers would bring Pisit and Thitapa to apply for the first 12-day detention period at the Taling Chan court on Tuesday and object their bail release on the grounds they are considered a flight risk.

Sanit also instructed investigators to complete the probe in 12 days to make an example of Pisit so people would not abuse the power of their position and public trust to cheat others.

Pol Lt-Colonel Wachirakan Watana, deputy inspector of Muang Lop Buri police station, said the body of Thaweesup Singphan was found in a car in front of the Saothong market in Tambon Thakae in Muang district.

She was on the back seat with her face down.

Thaweesup’s husband, Decha Singphan, 68, said his wife left home Friday night and had been unaccounted for since then.

Decha said his wife often went to temples to meditate with friends, so he thought that she might be at a temple and had declined to pick up her phone.

The car was found the couple’s son outside the beauty shop where Thaweesup worked as a hairdresser. The son, who said he did not know that the body was inside, called his father to tell him that his mother’s car had been found.

Decha used a spare key to unlock the car and found the body. He said he did not understand why his wife had taken off her clothes.

The chief investigator of Nvader, Ronnasit Proeksayajiva, submitted a petition with Justice Minister Suwapan Tanyuvardhana, via justice permanent secretary Wisit Wisitsora-at, in a bid to have the DSI probe the police investigators who decided not to file charges in relation to the case.

Ronnasit, whose NGO combats human trafficking, claimed that underage girls working at the business were forced into prostitution and they didn’t know who owned the business.

Ronnasit said “patron advisers”, who help customers select prostitutes, were prosecuted instead of the brothel’s owner(s).

The underage prostitutes told a court during the trial that they were told to give fact-twisting testimonies and claimed that their compensation as human-trafficking victims had been “deducted”, Ronnasit said.

Meanwhile, a Justice Ministry sub-panel mulled at a meeting on Monday taking disciplinary actions against 50 state officials accused of involvement in human trafficking.

A source at the ministry said the 50 include public school teachers, military personnel and police officers who were allegedly involved, by way of business operations or protection bribes, with various entertainment establishments linked to prostitution and human trafficking.

The source said the allegations against these people are based on clear evidence in the form of payslips of bank transactions, cell phone numbers and CCTVs recordings showing monthly bribe collections.

The source said the sub-panel also discussed how to respond to officials linked to alleged bribe taking at Bangkok massage parlor Nataree Entertainment, where police last year rounded up dozens of sex workers including 15 underage girls.

The source said state officials were also involved in twisting the facts, such as incorrectly stating that underage prostitutes were aged over 18 or getting employees to confess to running establishments.