Drug smuggling death row gran teaches lags to knit as she awaits execution
British gran Lindsay Sandiford has been teaching other prisoners to knit as she awaits her execution, fellow cons have revealed.
The 67-year-old, dubbed the “grandmother”, enjoys special privileges, including medium-rare steak dinners in prison in Bali, where she has been held since 2013 for trying to smuggle £1.6million of cocaine into the country in her suitcase. The picture of Sandiford in prison shows inmates listening intently as she shows them how to use knitting needles.
Her cellmate, an Indonesian jailed for corruption who has spent two years with the cocaine gran, said: “She is the grandmother of the prison, the Queen. She is the only one who can order steak from the prison cafe. She has it medium-rare, normally once a week.
Sandiford inside a holding cell after her trial at a court in Denpasar on the Indonesian resort island of Bali (AFP/Getty Images)“Everyone loves her, she teaches people how to knit, she hosts regular classes, and shows them how to look after themselves. No date has been set for the execution. She is scared of dying but she has accepted it.”
But other cons claim Sandiford is “foul-mouthed, antagonistic” and drives cellmates out of her room. One woman who spent six months with her added: “Lindsay is aggressively protective of herself. That’s the way she has learned to cope. She spends 99% of her time in her room.
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“They have activities, like nail painting or hair styling, but Lindsay does none of them. There was a Ukrainian girl who was put in her cell, but the girl requested to move. The way I read her is that she’s trying to survive. She started getting privileges, so all the girls slept on the floor but she got a mattress. And then she got cooking utensils because she didn’t like the prison food.
“Lindsay has a sweet tooth, she likes 70% dark chocolate. She’d be brought chocolate and fresh vegetables from supporters. I think the prison recognised that she’s not a young woman, and she came from the West.
A barbed wire fence running along the Kerobokan jail in Denpasar (AFP via Getty Images)“But being in Kerobokan is very difficult. If you go in as a smart person, you come out half as smart. There’s nothing to fire the neutrons while you’re in jail.” Now, after languishing on death row for 11 years fearing each morning may be the last, she now hopes she may dodge a firing squad thanks to a change in the law in Indonesia.
The law change, being introduced in January, means her death sentence could be converted into a life prison term as she has managed more than 10 years’ good behaviour behind bars. Lawyers could then argue she should be returned to the UK, where she is likely to go free on the basis of time served in Indonesia.
An inmate told us: “There is hope that she can go home. If she can get through to 2025 then she thinks she may be able to avoid the death penalty.” In a further boost, British officials have recently stepped up visits to see her from four times a year to once a month.
The Mirror's Dan outside the prison (Humphrey Nemar /daily mirror)Tonight, human rights barrister Felicity Gerry KC, who visited Sandiford in 2015, called for her to be returned to Britain. She said: “Indonesia is taking an important step in recognising the need to commute the sentences of those subject to the death penalty, especially women. Lindsay co-operated with the authorities and explained levels of coercion that should have at least mitigated her position.
“The Government should be taking active steps to facilitate her return to the UK, either to serve a sentence near her family or to consider her release.” The Mirror gained access to Kerobokan jail in Bali, where Sandiford spends every day waiting to be led from her rat-infested cell to Nusa Kambangan – known as Execution Island. The legal secretary, from Cheltenham, Glos, is the only prisoner on death row. She is said to have abandoned all hope of an appeal that would overturn her sentence, until now.
Sandiford initially claimed drug barons blackmailed her with threats to her son after she was arrested in 2012 with the class A drug haul. She changed her story when it was revealed she would receive the death penalty if convicted of trafficking.
The gran before being jailed (PA)
Sandiford is escorted by armed customs personnel at a customs office in Bali (AFP via Getty Images)Sandiford told officers she had been asked to carry the drugs by Julian Ponder. Sandiford agreed to take part in a police sting to catch the British antiques dealer, but was still charged.
Prosecutors had pressed for a 15-year jail term, but a Bali court imposed the ultimate sentence after ruling she damaged tourism and the fight against drugs. Ponder, 43 at the time and from Brighton, was cleared of smuggling but convicted of possessing 23g of cocaine which carries a maximum life sentence.
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Prosecutors in Bali had wanted a seven-year prison term, but a judge jailed him for six years and fined him £65,000. Ponder’s lawyer Arie Budiman Soenardi said he would not advise his client to appeal, adding: “The sentence is quite light, not far from what the prosecutors aimed for.”
Tonight, a Foreign Office spokesman said: “We are supporting a British woman detained in Bali and are in contact with her family and the Indonesian authorities.”
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