British drug-smuggling British grandmother Lindsay Sandiford has been living life as the ‘Queen’ of the Bali prison where she has been on death row for more than a decade.
Sandiford, 67, enjoys special benefits including medium-rare steak dinners and leading knitting circles to her fellow inmates, who have dubbed her ‘The Queen of Kerobokan Prison’ in Indonesia.
She has been imprisoned since 2013 for trying to smuggle £1.6million worth of cocaine into Indonesia in her suitcase.
The cocaine-smuggling grandmother’s cellmate, an Indonesian woman who has been behind bars for two years after being found guilty of corruption said: ‘She is the grandmother of the prison, the Queen.’
She reportedly said that Saniford is the only inmate who is permitted to order steak dinners from the prison cafe.
‘She has it medium-rare, normally once a week,’ Sandiford’s cellmate said.
Lindsay Sandiford has been imprisoned since 2013 for trying to smuggle £1.6 million cocaine
Lindsay Sandiford and inmates of Kerobokan Prison knitting in classes hosted by the Briton
Sandiford met one of her granddaughters (pictured) while in prison awaiting her fate
British innate Sandiford is loved by everyone in the prison, her cellmate told The Mirror.
She said that she teaches people in the prison how to knit in regular classes and also shows them how to take care of themselves.
Sandiford started getting privileges in prison, being given a mattress instead of sleeping on the floor.
She was then given her own cooking utensils as she did not enjoy the food in prison. As Lindsay has a ‘sweet tooth’ and an enjoyment for 70% dark chocolate, she was brought chocolate and fresh vegetables from her supporters.
The 67-year-old may have her sentence converted into a whole life term instead due to a law change being introduced in January, due to good behaviour behind bars.
Lawyers could argue for her to be returned to the UK, where she may be able to go free due to the time already served, the newspaper reported.
An inmate at Sandiford’s prison told The Mirror: ‘If she can get through to 2025 then she thinks she may be able to avoid the death penalty.’
Human rights barrister Felicity Gerry KC called for the grandmother to be returned to Britain.
She currently awaits being brought to Nusa Kambangan, known as Execution Island, from her cell in the Kerobokan jail.
Sandiford’s cellmate told the newspaper that she ‘is scared of dying but she has accepted it’ while another con claimed she is ‘foul-mouthed, antagonistic’ and drives people out of her cell.
The 67-year-old may have her sentence converted into a whole life term instead due to a law change being introduced in January, due to good behaviour behind bars
This picture taken in November 2012 shows a female detainee at Kerobokan prison
Now grey-haired and suffering arthritis, Sandiford spends her days knitting in the cramped five metres-by-five-metres cell she shares with four other women prisoners
The grandmother-of-two is locked up in one of the toughest prisons in Indonesia and the site of many deadly riots, known ironically as Hotel K.
Drug mule Sandiford was caught flying into Bali from Bangkok with 10.16 lb of cocaine in 2012.
Smugglers face severe penalties in the country as around 80 per cent of the prison’s population are locked up on drug charges waiting to be executed, according to the Mirror.
The Brit, from Yorkshire, who has no previous convictions, claimed she was forced by a UK-based drugs syndicate to smuggle cocaine from Thailand to Bali by threats to the life of one of her two sons in Britain.
She received a death sentence despite cooperating with police in a sting to arrest people higher up in the syndicate, sparking an outcry from human rights lawyers and former UK Director of Public Prosecutions Ken Macdonald who said she had been treated with ‘quite extraordinary severity’.
Barbed wire fences encircle the Kerobokan jail in Denpasar on Indonesia’s resort island of Bali
Sandiford (pictured left with her eldest son and right in her younger days) will be transferred to Nusa Kambangan – known as Execution Island – and shot by firing squad
She will be transferred to Nusa Kambangan – known as Execution Island – and shot by firing squad at midnight with up to a dozen other condemned prisoners when and if her death penalty is carried out
The British government has repeatedly refused to fund Sandiford’s appeal, despite a ruling from Supreme Court judges in London who said ‘substantial mitigating factors’ had been overlooked in her original trial.
The syndicate’s alleged ringleader Julian Ponder, 50, from Brighton, was freed from Kerobokan prison in late 2017 following rumours more than £1 million in bribes were paid to drop trafficking charges against Ponder, his former partner Rachel Dougall, and fellow Brit Paul Beales. Dougall served one year and Beales four years for involvement in the conspiracy.
Sandiford could face execution at any time after failing to lodge a final appeal but said: ‘I really cannot face asking anyone for help or having to deal with another lawyer. I just can’t face it. I’ve been burnt enough times.
‘I’ve had 10 different lawyers. If I actually turned my mind to the legal process I would get angry and bitter and it would be destructive.’
Indonesian police at the entrance of Kerobokan prison as prisoners torched buildings in 2012
Sandiford will be transferred to Nusa Kambangan and shot by firing squad
Julian Ponder, 50, from Brighton (pictured) was the alleged ringleader of the drug smuggling syndicate that Sandiford was involved in but he was freed from Kerobokan prison in late 2017
Now grey-haired and suffering arthritis, Sandiford spends days at a time knitting in the cramped five metres-by-five-metres cell prison she shares with four other women prisoners, most of them poorly-educated local women convicted of drug offences.
The prison houses 1,300 inmates – four times the amount of people the prison was built for in 1979 – and has previously been described by inmates as a ‘hellhole’ with frequent ‘murders, rapes, drug overdoses and bashings’.
Announcements and sirens on loudspeakers scream every day and inmates are constantly vying for space in the crowded cells.
Rachel Dougall, who was sentenced to a year in the squalid prison for failing to report a crime, told Daily Mail Australia in March, 2017, she suffered a nervous breakdown while inside after being locked up with drug addicts, HIV-positive inmates and sexually aggressive lesbians.
‘Most of the women were on drugs virtually every day. If you had money the guards would get you anything you wanted,’ she said.