Diary entry, 1 May 2005
I HAD BECOME FANATICALLY RELIGIOUS, PRAYING CONSTANTLY, reading the Bible zealously, even replacing grunt rock with tuneless Christian songs on my CD Walkman. I was clinging, clutching, desperately trying to give this hell some meaning, even creating crazy fantasies about why I was here. Maybe God wanted me to be an angel and needed me to find Him fast. This living hell was His way of clicking His fingers to get my attention. Well, He had it! So now He could set me free.
But my new faith didn’t keep me on an even keel. I could swing from calm religious understanding to raging fury at this cruel, senseless injustice in a split second. The world would seem dark, evil, scary, and I’d scream, yell and smash things, even once, shamefully, throttling a girl, before swinging back to Godly calm. It was a constant seesawing between religion and reality – and reality sucked.
I was scared, lonely and so utterly exhausted. I wasn’t coping. I was crying non-stop. I was terrified of being locked up like a monkey for twenty-seven years. As the verdict got closer, life got worse. My soul trembled. Everything upset me. Anguished thoughts flew through my mind.
Jail life was hell: the new dramas relentless. Before my next court day, a prisoner’s face was smashed up in front of me. He was squatting against the wall in the visiting hall, looking lost in his thoughts. I sat opposite. Then, whack! A guard walked up and without warning kicked him in the face with a steel-capped boot. He collapsed to the floor. His shaky hands flew up to his broken face, but the guard hit them away for another free kick. I tensed up, disgusted. I couldn’t breathe. I sat uselessly watching as the guard kept kicking his face until it was a mangled mess of smashed-up bone and blood. It was sick. I was strangely mesmerised, sickened, appalled, but I couldn’t tear my eyes away. I had no idea why this guy was being beaten, but after he was dragged past me to the isolation tower, I had chilling flashbacks of his gruesome, battered face for days.
Beatings were nothing new, but you never got used to them. At least once a week, I’d be walking along and see a guy go up to another guy and punch him viciously in the jaw. His whole face would collapse, covered in blood. Instinctively, I’d want to run and help, but someone would always grab my hand, urgently whispering, ‘Keep walking, keep walking.’ I’d turn to look, to make sure he was OK. But you had to keep your head down. You couldn’t help, or you’d get beaten, too. I felt absolute disgust that people could do this to each other. These incidents always left me traumatised, unable to stop thinking about them for days.
Apart from Sonia’s occasional thrashing from the guards, girls didn’t usually get beaten like that. Most of the violence in the women’s block was between the women, usually Wanda and her lesbian friends, who were always switching girlfriends and then beating each other senseless in a jealous rage. The only violence I’d suffered was when a guy angrily hurled bricks at me in my cell after I refused to sit on his knee. He was in for murder. I didn’t get hit, but it scared the hell out of me. Then, two weeks before my verdict, I was attacked by a lesbian who’d been flirting with me for months.
Inexplicably I’d always attracted lesbians in my old life, but they usually backed off when they found out I wasn’t into girls; we respected each other’s sexual preferences. In Hotel K, that didn’t happen. There were many lesbians in our small compound and none were shy of showing their affections. I just ignored their moves, but this one girl was relentless, always stroking my arms, giving me loving looks and asking girls to translate: ‘I want to touch Corby! Ask if I can touch Corby!’ It was gross. I hated it.
‘No. Tell her I like men,’ I’d reply. ‘I’m not a lesbian!’
It didn’t stop her. She kept it up. She made my skin crawl. I’m sure she was unappealing even to other lesbians. She had three-millimetre-thick bright yellow tartar build-up on her teeth and foul-smelling breath.
Then one day she turned. As I was filling my bucket at the tap, she ran up and kicked it over, splashing water everywhere and trying to put her own bucket down. I’d had enough. I didn’t need this bullshit. ‘You’re an idiot!’ I screamed before throwing her bucket out of the way. She went berserk. She sprang at me, screeching, scratching and clawing like a wild cat, taking huge chunks of skin off my arms. Other girls leapt up and pulled her off me. She had a crazed look in her eye. I was shaking and in shock. My arms were a bloody, scratched-up mess. I glared at her but swallowed my anger, thinking, You’re pathetic. I didn’t say a word. I didn’t want to give her the satisfaction of reacting. I just stood my bucket backup, took the hose and started refilling it. I hated this place. I had to escape it.
I’m off to court tomorrow and haven’t been told what’s happening – suppose it doesn’t really matter, everything’s out of my control anyway. The Lord will overpower the strongest lions and the most deadly snakes.
Diary entry, 5 May 2005
As I stepped outside Hotel K’s front door the next morning, cameras and microphones were thrust in my face. ‘John Ford’s been stabbed! How do you feel about that, Schapelle? How do you feel?’
I felt complete shock. My legs trembled and went weak. I stumbled towards the paddy wagon, thinking, He’s dead, he’s dead . . . Reporters were still yelling, but I couldn’t hear any more words. An indescribably loud noise was roaring in my ears as I vanished into a surreal daze. I couldn’t believe it. This man had risked his life to help me and now he was dead. He’d told the court that he and his daughter had already been threatened and that if he named the person who owned the drugs he was 100 per cent sure he’d be killed and I probably would be, too.
Reporters were all still screaming questions as I sat in the police van, trying to cope with my rising hysteria. But I was losing it. I couldn’t stop shaking. I was surrounded by cameras thrusting through the windows, all trying to catch my distress. I put my head in my hands, trying to take a moment to absorb the shocking news. The other prisoner in the van was doing his best to help me, pushing the cameras away and slamming the windows shut before we finally tore off to court.
I was crying hysterically. I’d been living in fear of something like this happening for months. Now my fears were real. It wasn’t just paranoia. He’d been stabbed. I was petrified of being stabbed, too. I felt blind terror when we got to court and I was pulled through the media scrum. They kept yelling questions. ‘How do you feel, Schapelle? How do you feel?’ I was stumbling along, almost falling, but being held up by the guards gripping me tightly by the arms as they almost carried me to the holding cell. As soon as I was inside, I threw up.
Merc saw my distress and screamed at the reporters. They all knew there was no way I could have heard the news about Ford yet, but they’d hurled it straight at me, to get a newsworthy reaction. They got it. Merc was so upset, telling them they were cruel and tactless. They didn’t splash that all over the news. I found out that Mr Ford wasn’t dead but had been stabbed in the back with a razor blade and was doing OK.
Schapelle Corby looked stunned yesterday when she was told the Australian prisoner who gave evidence in her defence had been attacked in jail. She was on her way to court in Bali for her latest hearing when she was told rape suspect John Ford had been slashed by another inmate at the prison in Victoria.
Daily Telegraph (Australia), 7 May 2005
In court that day, I learnt that John Ford had risked his life for nothing. The prosecutors were rejecting his evidence and still demanding I spend my life in jail.
I was terrified – nothing was going my way. But suddenly we got an explosive break that backed up what I was saying, what John Ford was saying and what the Australian Federal Police had been furiously denying. There was a major drug-smuggling problem at our very secure Australian airports, involving airport staff. On the same day, almost at the exact same time that I went through Sydney airport, corrupt baggage handlers were evading security to intercept a briefcase with 9.9 kilograms of cocaine before it reached customs.
News of it broke only when one of the men in the drug syndicate a
pplied for bail in a Sydney court. A police statement given to the court gave details of ‘Operation Mocha’. For the past six months, the AFP had been using an informant to unravel a drug-smuggling ring that was using baggage handlers to help smuggle cocaine into Australia through Sydney airport. The syndicate had brought 200 kilos of cocaine into Australia between June and December 2004, the dates of each shipment decided according to the roster of the corrupt baggage handlers.
On the day I flew to Bali, the corrupt handlers were moving bags, moving my bags and moving 9.9 kilograms of cocaine through Sydney airport and being paid $300,000 for their criminal handiwork. It was unbelievable. I’d been saying from day one I didn’t do this. John Ford had been saying he’d overheard a conversation about baggage handlers using my bag to move drugs, and my lawyers had been flying with this theory for months. Now we had a highly plausible explanation of how it could so easily have been done. What was the chance of it being just a lucky coincidence that this new evidence conveniently and perfectly backed my story? The judges could surely see the odds of this being a coincidence were extremely low. Surely they would believe me now?
Surely it was also a much more plausible explanation of how a whopping 4.2-kilo clear plastic bag, casually tossed into a boogie-board bag, had sailed through two Australian airports?
The government, Qantas and the AFP had all known about this for six long months, and despite my lawyers asking for any information on crime and corruption at the airports, they’d denied it even existed and just repeated their mantra: ‘We’re doing all we can to help.’
I’d been living in desperate hope of news that would prove I didn’t do it and get me out of here. I thought this was finally it. I thought it was my big break. I thought it was big enough news for them to know ‘OK, this girl didn’t do it.’ I was excited to hear that the Australian Prime Minister John Howard was going to write a letter to the court, explaining that there was a problem with airport staff being involved in drug smuggling. I got so excited that the courts would finally believe me, finally listen to this evidence.
Poor Merc really believed this was the big break, too, thinking she was going to have her little sister home again at last. Journalists were frantically phoning her for comment, telling her this was it. Ron and Robin were telling her this was it. Sheer relief hit her. She had a breakdown. After being the strongest in the family since day one, carrying the burden of dealing with lawyers and the media and fearing for me daily, she collapsed on the floor at home, shaking and crying hysterically, scrunched up in the foetal position until Wayan came home and found her. She hadn’t cried like that since the night of my arrest.
But our hopes were shattered again. We were crushed and angry when the judge said it was too late to submit any new evidence to the court. He asked my lawyers to give him any new information in writing by the following Monday. He might consider it. But the chief prosecutor said it had no legal standing because the trial was effectively over. I couldn’t believe it. The government had known about this for six months. How much did they really know? Did they also know exactly who put the marijuana in my bag?
When I got back to Kerobokan that afternoon, my nerves were jangling. I was tense, angry, sick of this life, sick of the bullshit, the cameras, media, the pain, the agony. I was shaking, ready to lose it, ready to explode. It got worse. I had to fight with all my energy not to rip into a girl who started picking on me.
This girl, Niken, had been doing all she could to irritate me for seven months, always taunting, whispering, pointing, spreading nasty rumours. She was a very, very bitchy girl with a sneaky personality. She started picking the moment I got back from court.
She was tipping me over the edge. I felt blind fury. I was desperately fighting against the urge to punch her. I folded my arms and held them tightly into my body, as tight as I could, trying not to hit her. I was standing almost on top of her, seeing visions of kicking her to the ground, bashing her head into the concrete and not stopping. I don’t like violence, but those visions horrifyingly satisfied my anger towards her. I felt sick that I could actually see myself doing that. She just stood there smirking, with no idea of the violent pictures I was seeing. I glared back, asking, ‘Do you like your face?’ She nodded, still smirking. ‘Then you’d better protect it. Stay away from me! Stay away from my cell! Don’t even look at me!’
She didn’t listen. The next day she started picking again. I was still full of rage, but I tried to stay calm. I tried to ignore her. I knew I was only one bitchy comment away from losing it, so I did all I could to avoid her. I kept my distance, quickly moving if she came anywhere near me. But she was pushing me. The next morning I lost it.
This girl was in my cell when I got back from collecting water. I screamed at her, ‘Get out, get out’, shoving her out of my cell. She started yelling nasty, bitchy comments. That did it. I snapped. I couldn’t control myself.
Shaking with fury, I marched into her cell, grabbed her by the throat and started choking her. The other girls were screaming at me to stop. But I couldn’t. I threw her onto the mattress, raging with fury. Another girl screamed ‘Get off!’ from under the blankets, sticking her head out of hiding to show two gruesome black eyes. She’d been beaten up for flirting with another girl’s husband. Niken got up. I wasn’t finished. I got her by the throat again and threwher back down in another direction. By this time, the cell was full of girls. Some held me back from another attack. I broke their grip and walked out, still mad as hell.
A few minutes later, the guards called us both to their table. They wanted us to shake hands and get over it. I refused point-blank.
‘No, I’m not shaking this girl’s hand!’ I was fuming. ‘I don’t like her, and I’m not pretending I like her just for you!’
She wasn’t smirking now. But suddenly she had even less to smirk about. An older woman from her cell, whom we all called ‘Mum’, ran up screaming abuse at her. It was a catfight. She was furious. She’d seen how bitchy and awful Niken was to me. She got her claws out and tore big scratches down Niken’s face. I hated this girl but instantly felt bad for starting this fight. The guards yelled at them to stop. They told Niken to stay away from my cell and banned us both from church for a week.
I’m so angry at myself for letting her get to me. I’ve got so much anger inside, I need some stress release. I need a punching bag. So I guess she was it. I am ashamed that I showed such weakness. The next morning I went and apologised, also to the other girls in her cell for barging in with such rage. Took a lot to apologise, hard thing to do. So much easier to lose your temper than to apologise for it. Once it’s said and done, you feel so much better and can get on with the day.
Diary entry, 19 May 2005
I was still shaken and upset about it the next time I saw Lily, and I started telling her how ashamed I felt about it. She just looked at me blankly and asked, ‘Is she pretty, Schapelle?’
‘What?’ I was baffled. ‘What has that got to do with anything?’
Lily thought I’d attacked this girl out of jealousy because she was pretty. The conversation ended. She didn’t get it. Lily’s question told me more about her than anything else.
I needed to speak to someone. I needed a psychiatrist who wouldn’t run to the press, or a person I could trust to just let loose with and cry and cry and cry and tell them how shit my cell was, how scared I felt, how horrible life was and just release everything. But there was no one. I didn’t want to unload on the only people I could trust – my family – as they already had enough stress to deal with. They didn’t need to know all the gruesome details of my daily life. I couldn’t do that to them. I’d always try to put on a brave face and say, ‘No, no, it’s OK!’ I just had to deal with it all myself. I only had myself and God to rely on. It was lonely. I prayed to Him a lot, releasing through prayer. It helped to temporarily lift the heavy black cloud of despair. But I spent most of the time praying in my cell, as I no longer felt safe at church. I certainly couldn’t trust Ch
ristians any more than I could trust lawyers, guards, police or anyone else.
Even an Australian pastor who’d baptised me five months earlier stole my trust, touting his story just weeks before the verdict. He’d already run to the press when he first returned from baptising me. Now he was ringing TV programmes and newspapers offering to do interviews, even faxing journalists apersonal thank-you note I’d written and given to him. It got printed. I was shattered – now I was being exploited by a pastor! Not long before my verdict, he had the audacity to return to Bali with Channel 7’s Today Tonight. They’d paid for his airfares and hotel in return for promises of access to me. They didn’t get it. I refused to come out. I never ever, ever wanted to see this man again. He’d burnt me. Like so many others, he’d sold his soul to the media and in the process hurt me. If you couldn’t trust a pastor, who could you trust?
Not my lawyer. Lily came in asking me questions about my religion: ‘Were you religious in Australia?’
‘No.’
‘What was your baptism name?’
‘Abigail.’ I started feeling distressed. ‘Lily, what’s this got to do with my case? Why are you writing all this down, Lily?’
‘Oh, no reason!’
‘Scribble it out! You’re not giving it to reporters, Lily – scribble it out!’
‘Oh, I can’t do that!’
No More Tomorrows Page 20