Authors: Schapelle Corby
There were his book deals, Hollywood movie deals, interview deals. He kept telling me I’d never have to work again, kept coming at us with more ideas, more deals, and we just kept saying, ‘No, Ron!’ He had dollar signs in his eyes and sky-high, over-the-top expectations. I know he was trying to do a deal for an exclusive TV interview but refused offers of $450,000, because I was worth no less than a million. This was, of course, for when he got me out.
We discovered that Ron didn’t always tell us the truth about the money being offered, as Merc often spoke directly to the media. They rang her, unsure if Ron had the authority to do deals when supposedly no contract existed. She found out that on at least one occasion Ron was lying about the amount being offered for an interview. He claimed the offer was $20,000 less than it actually was. At this point he also regularly told Merc to change her number and stop talking directly to the media. She refused, as she did not trust him.
My family wasn’t particularly interested in media deals; they just wanted to get me home and for it all to be over. But if we could make a bit of money from a magazine or TV interview, great; it would help support me a bit longer and help to continue the legal fight. Because, despite the media hype that Ron was ‘bank-rolling’ my defence, he wasn’t. By the end of April he was already claiming in the media that he’d spent $300,000 on my defence.
‘Within the first five minutes of talking to this incredible, brave young girl I knew straight away she didn’t have a guilty bone in her body. From that moment, my commitment changed – I decided to do everything possible to get her out. I will only stop when my heart stops. Money didn’t come into the equation,’ says Ron, whose battle for Schapelle’s freedom is estimated to have already cost more than $300,000.
Woman’s Day
, 25 April 2005
We had no idea what Ron was supposedly spending his money on. We were using all Dad’s superannuation and any other money we could scrape together to pay the lawyers. By the time we learnt the Australian Government would be contributing to my legal costs, we’d already spent a huge amount of money and continued to pay thousands for witnesses to be brought over and other ‘incidentals’.
Things started going quite sour between Merc and Ron when she kept saying ‘no’ to most of his media deals and money-making schemes. I could see Merc getting more and more edgy around both Ron and Robin when they’d come in to visit me. She knew I was struggling, with the verdict so close, so she didn’t tell me exactly how much pressure they were putting her under. Ron even hassled her on the day before my verdict to make me write a diary for
New Idea
about the days leading up to my trial. She told him I was in no state to do it.
Ron and Robin were obsessed with the opinion polls in Australia, constantly telling me how they’d boosted my profile – yeah, thanks, but get me out of here – always thinking of ways to win a bit more sympathy, whip up the press, boost their little investment – me! They had become spin doctors who were spinning out of control. I felt completely forgotten as a person in the middle of all this.
One of their craftier ideas was to write a couple of letters just before my verdict was due, one pleading to Prime Minister John Howard and the other to the Indonesian president. I knew nothing of these letters until after they hit the headlines.
Mr Howard, as a father and as a leader, I plead for your help. I did not do this. I beg for justice. I don’t know how much longer I can do this. Please bring me home. Please.
Dear President Yudhoyono, you hold the key. Please set me free. I have done enough time for this terrible crime.
Unless I had an uncanny ability to write rhyming couplets in my sleep, I didn’t write that letter. And neither did I write the first one. The only person I knew who wrote in rhyming couplets was Ron Bakir. In a letter he gave me, he said: ‘Don’t ever FALL because Australians want you to stand TALL. You have many loved ones, who want you in your DOME, let me promise you one thing we will bring you HOME.’
Robin told reporters the letter to the Indonesian president was ‘a plea from the heart’ that he would personally deliver to the president. He said: ‘I’ll see Schapelle today and she’ll give that to me. As I understand it, the letter is more about her affection for Indonesia. It talks about her family and her sister and the fact that she would do nothing to bring disrespect to Indonesia.’ To this day, I don’t know if the letter actually made it to the president or whether it was just given to the press. But I still fret that maybe it damaged my appeals.
The next time I saw Ron, after the letters had found their way to the media, I asked him for copies so at least I’d learn what was in them. He looked me in the eye and said: ‘There’s no letter, Schapelle, it’s been blown out of proportion. There is no letter.’
My faith in the dynamic duo really faltered on the day the prosecutors recommended to the judges that I should spend my life in jail. The day before, Ron had phoned me from Australia, saying, ‘Don’t worry, Schapelle, you’ll be coming home, we’ll get you out. Don’t worry, you’ll be coming home!’
I was totally frustrated that ‘Team Corby’ was devoting so much more time, energy and effort to the court of public opinion than to the Bali Court of Law – the only court that actually mattered right now, the court where my life was on the line.
13
More Court Daze
I
FELT SO SMALL AND FRAGILE, UP AGAINST A SYSTEM THAT
seemed determined to get me, to pull me further into this nightmare, so I could never ever escape, never go home. I’d seen how low the prosecutors would stoop to ensure a guilty verdict. If they’d lie and destroy evidence in court to make their case against me even tighter, what else would they do?
It was all starting to play with my mind. I was breathing fear and paranoia. I often huddled up in my cell and shook, hiding from danger and choking on terror. I felt my enemies everywhere. I felt preyed on, watched – dark shadows, spies and cameras lurking everywhere. I felt everyone was out to get me. I felt every new prisoner was an undercover cop sent to spy on me.
My biggest fear was that drugs would be planted in my cell. It would be simple: drugs were rife. That was the irony. I was in a place where drugs flowed more freely than water. People sold drugs in here like hawkers sold fake Gucci on Kuta Beach. It was part of life. I saw it from day one, when prisoners would slip casually into step with me, whispering, ‘Corby, you want smoke? Corby, you want drugs?’ ‘No, thanks.’ Everyone just assumed I used drugs, given my charges. But they quickly learnt I didn’t, and I quickly learnt that everything from heroin to crack was so widely available that even people from outside came inside to score.
It spooked me. If drugs were found in my things, my life would be finished. It wouldn’t matter whether they were deviously planted to set me up or stashed by a girl protecting her own butt. Who would believe me? It wasn’t just crazy paranoia. Other girls feared it, too. When guards sprang cell searches on us, all the girls dived into their cells to check their things for drugs before the guards did. The searches were for anything ‘illegal’ such as drugs, CD players and phones. We’d buy it all back a few weeks later, but not the drugs. Anyone caught with drugs faced new charges. For me, it might mean a firing squad.
I had to protect my life. I was always suspicious and watching my back. I spent hours sitting in my cell, searching everywhere from under my mattress to inside my toothbrush holder. It took nothing more than a girl from another cell lingering in mine to panic me into a full-scale search.
I interrupted two girls from another cell who were in my cell smoking crack. I don’t care if they want to do that crap, if they have no respect for themselves or their families; I’m not going to stop them. But I’m not facing just one or two years like they are – I’m in the middle of my trial, facing death by firing squad. Please dig up a little respect and smoke in your own cell! If they get caught, the courts would hear about it, and I could kiss my life goodbye. I’m just watching my back so they don’t start hiding the goods in my belongings.
Diary entry, 5 March 2005
I was struggling to hold it together, stay sane, stay positive and hopeful. All the stress, fear and paranoia were breaking me down, making me sicker, weaker and more fragile. I got raging fevers, insanely itchy rashes, stomach cramps and head spins. In the mornings, I often struggled to lift my head off the pillow, and when I did, I spent most days in a light-headed, dizzy haze.
Severe stomach pains had me lying on my bed crunched up foetus-style. Later, in a visit, I suddenly became so hot that in an instant my body became completely wet and my hair damp, everything became hazy. Eddie came and got me, sat me down. My head’s been feeling dizzy for a while – but not as extreme as today. Also this morning both my legs broke out in a huge itchy rash. This afternoon carrying the water I had to keep stopping, putting the bucket down – no energy – my cellmates carried the water while I lay down. I can’t get sick. I cannot get sick. My legs are on fire. My stomach has become huge, like an Ethiopian’s.
Diary entry, 9 March 2005
I was having a pretty bad teary day, tried to hold back while Merc was here but let loose in the church. I’m just so down, so heavy this past week. I need this mood to lift, I need to be strong, I’m back in court on Thursday . . . need to get my concentration back.
Diary entry, 14 March 2005
As the weeks in court passed, I spent more time praying. It was all I could do to try to help myself from inside these white walls, as I was completely powerless to do anything else.
I was also putting my faith in Ron, clinging to his promises, his endless assurances that he’d get me acquitted, or at worst six months in a luxury villa with a pool and staff. I lapped it up with tears rolling down my cheeks as I listened to him and Robin talk about my bright future. But each time they left, my heart refilled with fear as I was slammed back into my monkey cage. I so desperately wanted to believe them, but I also knew that court wasn’t going so great. All I had so far was my word and that of James, Ally and Katrina.
I was still hoping the Australian Government was doing its own investigation, at least to find out how the bag of marijuana got through two major, apparently secure airports. Surely they would be investigating that? I prayed that their inquiry would uncover the truth, prove it wasn’t mine, prove the drugs weren’t in my bagat check-in, and maybe even find out who did this.
I needed evidence, a witness, something more than just words. I needed it badly. I was begging God for it every day. Then out of the blue, something broke. Merc told me the news before court. A man in Australia had just come forward, telling of three men who put the drugs in my bag. I was in shock. Merc and I clasped hands through the bars, looking at each other with tears pouring down our cheeks. We didn’t need to say anything; we knew we were thinking the same.
Could this be it?
Would I go home now?
Lily arrived a bit later to explain it to me through the bars of the cramped holding cell. This man was in jail in Melbourne and had overheard a conversation between jailed baggage handlers about a drug-smuggling mix-up. He had names. I couldn’t believe it. I held Lily’s hand as more tears washed down my cheeks. I just kept thinking,
Oh, my God! Oh, my God!
Everything was a hazy blur as photographers and reporters noisily clamoured at the bars, clicking cameras and yelling questions. ‘Schapelle, how do you feel?’
‘I can’t even talk. I feel numb!’
‘Are you happy, Schapelle?’
‘Of course I’m happy. But I don’t want to get my hopes up, just in case.’
My head was spinning . . . what does this mean? Do I go home now? Inside the court my lawyer told the judges of the news and they adjourned the court until next Thursday, to get the evidence together. The prosecutor was not happy about the new evidence. I was thinking I’d never find out who had done this to me or maybe find out like twenty years from now, when someone’s confessing on their death bed. Although I’m so excited and relieved at the news, I’m not getting my mind set for release. I don’t want to be built up to be let down. Just go with the flow of the process, pray a lot, and see what happens.
Diary entry, 17 March 2005
My lawyers had a week to sort out the red tape to get this man to come and testify. It was a big week ahead, as I was also giving evidence, but I had no time to put my feet up and relax. The weeks between court appearances were as nightmarish as usual, but the unrelenting daily dramas were getting more draining as my fragile and paranoid state increased. Usually I walked from the bright lights of court straight into a sick new drama.
This particular week, I walked into a suicide attempt. Everyone was hysterical. A lesbian girl, Wanda, had just drunk a concoction of poison after being beaten by her jealous girlfriend, who’d caught her smoking drugs with a new bisexual girl. She was in really bad shape. She looked sick, her head hanging uselessly to one side. But the guards refused to call a doctor. They locked up and left as usual. By morning, Wanda couldn’t move. She was dribbling and twitching. Finally she was carried out on a stretcher and taken to hospital. She lived. She walked back in that same afternoon and made up with her guilty girlfriend, who’d even sold her mobile phone to pay off Wanda’s overdue drugs bill.
That night, a guy escaped. He’d just been sentenced to eleven years for murder and crawled out through a narrow drain near the women’s block, dumping his prison clothes on the side of the road where he exited. The next day, the place was full of talk that he’d been caught in the bushes just outside the jail. I doubted it, as I couldn’t see or hear anyone being beaten by the guards when I went out for my afternoon visit. It turned out he had successfully escaped. Lucky man!