I FELT SURE THEIR CRIME OF trafficking heroin a month before my verdict had contributed to me getting twenty years. I believed the judge hit me hard because their brazen drug-smuggling racket had mocked Indonesian drug laws. Three of nine Australians – most of them teenagers or in their early twenties – were caught with heroin strapped to their thighs at Denpasar airport. One guy was already seated on the plane, while another four were nabbed in a local hotel room surrounded by heroin and drug paraphernalia.Renae Lawrence was the only female in the group. I was terrified of her before she arrived. I didn’t want to share a cell with her. I had panicked thoughts that she’d cause problems for me, pick on me, start fights and ram my head into the cement walls. I even taught Dewi, one of the girls in my cell, a line to say if Renae attacked me: ‘Who are you? You’re a prisoner, you’re a criminal . . . you’re lower than a snake’s belly. How dare you come in here and do this!’My fears were fuelled by news stories, scary photographs and frenzied gossip.
