Death Penalty Verdict For Lindsay Sandiford

Incase anybody is unfamilar with this story. Back in May 2012 Lindsay Sandiford 56 was arrested at Bail Airport after being caught with 5kg of cocaine worth £1.7 million whilst trying to smiggle them out of the Country.

Here is a run down of the dates leading up to her sentence being passed.

Early 2012: Lindsay Sandiford, who had been living in Gloucester, sets up home in India

May 17 2012: Mrs Sandiford allegedly meets two members of the drug syndicate in Bangkok, Thailand, and collects a suitcase packed with 4.8 kilos of cocaine worth £1.7 million.

May 19: She flies to Denpasar airport, the main airport on Bali, where customs officials X-ray the suitcase and find the drugs. She is arrested.

May 20: She is interrogated by drug squad officers who suggest it will be in her interest to tell all she knows about the syndicate. She agrees.

May 20 - 24: She stays at a hotel arranged by the police, when she reveals everything and agrees to lead officers to the town of Candidasa, on the east of the island, where Paul Beales is arrested.

May 25: Her information leads to the arrest of Julian Ponder and his partner Rachel Dougall, described by locals as 'the King and Queen of Bali' because of their extravagant lifestyle.

May 25 - Sept 27: Mrs Sandiford is held for weeks in a small cell at police headquarters in Denpasar, telling all she knows about the other three arrested Britons.

August: She is moved to Kerobokan prison, where, because she is so important to the police case, she is held in solitary confinement.

Early September: She is believed to have written to the British Embassy and Indonesian government officials claiming she is being badly treated and does not have enough food or water.

September 27: Mrs Sandiford makes her first court appearance, accused of drug trafficking. She is tearful and covers her head with a scarf, maintaining that she had agreed to carry the suitcase because her son Elliot, 21, was being threatened by a drug gang.

September to January 14: She appears in court several times, her lawyers pleading for leniency because of her co-operation. The prosecution agree that because she has co-operated with the investigation they want her jailed for 'only' 15 years, rather than receive the mandatory death sentence.

January 14: In a 'last chance' hearing, her lawyer pleads for even less than the 15 years because her son was being threatened and she was coerced into carrying the cocaine.

January 22: She, her lawyer and even the prosecution are stunned by the death sentence, one of the judges said she had brought a bad reputation to Bali's tourism.



Shocked as verdict is passed down.

As far as my opnion goes I've always opposed the Death Penalty irespective of the crime committed. But in particular a penalty so harsh as this being passed down for this.

Lindsey has ofcourse got the support of the British MP's who will be asking for clemancy but I fear that will probably avail to nothing.

Yet another Brit making the deadly mistake of not respecting the laws of another country. Places like Thailand and Indonesia don't fuck around when it comes to the law. They mean business. In the UK Lindsey would be looking a sentence of probably 5 years with a relatively comfortable cell probably with SKY TV. Unlike the UK in Bali she'll have anything but an easy ride of it.

I have put a poll in to see what the forum's opinions are on the sentence.

A simple question. Was the Death Penalty far too harsh a sentence.

no - like you said this country to soft and other countries dont fuck about - got what she deserved, probably thought like this country 2 - 5 years if caught but their prisons aint hotels like ours 0 no sky tv, ps3's just a bit straw to sleep on and a bucket to piss in and bread and water to eat and locked up 23 hours a day - like it should be here!

Ridiculous sentence!!!

Hopefully they will let her go back to the U.K, where she will face lesser consequences.

Chances are the sentence will be changed to life in prison as far eastern countries very rarely execute westerners, especially british subjects. Personally i believe the death penalty should only be used in extreme circumstances. Although from what i,ve seen of their prisons she will soon be wishing they had carried out the original sentence.

if u cant do the time. dont do the crime

I think although what she did was wrong its sounds as though she was trying to protect her son,also the fact that she agreed to implicate some of the people who forced her to do this should have carried more favour in court.

The death penalty I think should be given for crimes such as murder, rape and peado's, theft people should have their hands chopped off like in saudi arabia, and depending on the scale and class of drug smuggling I think prison.

Every country is different though and if other people in those places have commited the same crime and faced the death penalty, why shouldn't she, harsh yes, in reality she knew what she was doing and taking the risk of getting caught. So it's her own fault really.

If she was smart, shes not even hand cuffed in that pic and the guy next to her looks harmless, she should just do a runner....

Well some interesting responses there. But it's very easy to be sitting here in the UK waving the high moral card. I also agree that if this was for a murder case then my sympathys towards this women wouldn't really be all that much. Although like I stated I still strongly object to the use of the death penalty. Like it or not this women is a human being and it's no way for a civilised society to be operating like this.

Also what if this was one of your relatives, would you be as likely to say yeah she deserved it. All the death penalty achieves is inflicting more pain on others. She was bloody stupid, she shouldn't have gone through with this but like a lot of smugglers it's mostly fueled purely by financial reasons and this is nothing more than absolute desperation for a quick payday.

If she is executed it won't stop people doing drugs, if people want it then they can easily get hold of it. Bali is we known for it's excessive lifestyle. Also please note it's not her that should be facing the ultimate punishment but the drug lords who have masterminded the crime.

Lindsay Sandiford got herself wrangled into a situation where really there was no turning back. Her family members lifes were threatened if this mission was not carried out. I hope the British Embassy manage to overturn the verdict. Give her 15 years, out in 10 years just in time to make a new episode on Banged Up Abroad.

Taking her out of her cell in the middle of the night, tying her up to a tree and then brutally shooting her. This ain't a simple, if you can't do the time then don't do the crime throwaway comment. It's serious. Anybody who supports this sentence in my opinion is showing support for murder.

If the death penalty is in existence, you automatically create a 'close-call' scenario. A situation where the application of it comes down to one person's interpretation of the letter of the law. One of the basic tenets of jurisprudence is "beyond a reasonable doubt" - which states that there can be no reasonable doubt in the mind of a reasonable person before a decision is reached. But if just one innocent person is put to death, which would have happened many times over since it was abolished in 1965, then there is no justifiable reason for its existence.

I accept that there are monstrous crimes that have been caught on CCTV, witnessed by numerous people and the perpetrator has been arrested at the scene - no one is arguing that those people should be removed from society and kept in basic conditions for the rest of their lives, except their lawyers. But you cannot apply the death penalty for the obvious ones without making this thin either/or line which would be toed and crossed at some point in time. And then you can euthanize us all, because we'd all be guilty of murder.

I do not agree with capital punishment. However, I find it really annoying that whenever someone commits a crime abroad the media whips up a campaign to say how unjust it all is. One thing if it's a dodgy verdict but quite another if they are banged to rights guilty.
If you go abroad you should be aware of the consequences if you intend to commit a crime and get caught. We would not take kindly to being harangued by foreign media and governments from around the world if someone from abroad was being sentenced here for a crime they committed here. I appreciate our prison system is likely to be more humane than those abroad but the principle remains the same.