My year of hell behind bars in Bali's Hotel K: Convent girl convicted over £1.6m cocaine bust reveals vicious beatings drove her to breaking point...but was she a drug baron’s moll or the innocent she claims to be?
- Rachel Dougall was sentenced to 12 months for failing to report a crime
- She was jailed in Bali's notorious and squalid Kerobokan Prison
- Dougall has spoken publicly for the first time after returning to Britain
- Mother-of-one has told how she suffered a nervous breakdown in prison
PUBLISHED: 21:01 GMT, 27 July 2013 | UPDATED: 00:16 GMT, 28 July 2013
Shattered: Rachel Dougall pictured back at home in Brighton after spending a year in Bali's most notorious prison
Cowering on a wafer-thin floor mat in an Indonesian prison, Rachel Dougall could do little but cover her face with her hands as a six-foot woman prisoner viciously punched and kicked her.
The convent school-educated mother-of-one was only days into a year-long sentence connected to a £1.6 million cocaine smuggling ring when she was attacked by one of the 14 inmates crammed into her tiny cell.
It was the first of several savage beatings she endured in Bali’s notorious and squalid Kerobokan Prison, nicknamed ‘Hotel K’, before being released in May this year.
Speaking publicly for the first time since she was deported back to Britain, Dougall, 40, reveals that she suffered a nervous breakdown after being locked up with drug addicts, HIV-positive inmates and sexually aggressive lesbians. She developed scabies and says she nearly died of pneumonia, spending a week in hospital.
It may be hard to sympathise with a woman who was accused of trying to smuggle just over 10lbs of cocaine from Bangkok to Bali – albeit that her sentence was for the minor charge of failing to report a crime.
It’s also true she has a vested interest in speaking out against alleged accomplice Lindsay Sandiford – a 57-year-old Gloucestershire grandmother sentenced to death for smuggling – who Dougall insists was the mastermind behind the plot.
But this interview marks a new twist in a case that has left the ageing housewife on death row – and the British judiciary powerless to help. Three leading judges expressed ‘great sympathy’ with Sandiford but ruled that the Government was not acting unlawfully in refusing to pay for her appeal against the death penalty.
Police originally believed that Dougall’s childhood sweetheart Julian Ponder, a 44-year-old former antiques restorer, was the brains behind the British drug syndicate that became known as the ‘Gang of Four’.
But the case collapsed after Dougall, Ponder and the final member of the group, Paul Beales, claimed they had been set up by Sandiford.
‘She’s not the innocent she would like people to believe,’ Dougall says. ‘Everyone thinks she’s this poor naive granny, but she’s not. She doesn’t deserve any sympathy; I’ve been told by many people in Bali and Britain that she’s been bringing drugs into the country for 25 years.’
Sandiford gave evidence against the others after being caught at Bali’s airport with a suitcase full of cocaine on May 19 last year.
Ponder, who became known as the ‘King of Bali’ for his imperious manner, is currently serving six years for possession of three quarters of an ounce of cocaine, which was found in the luxury villa he shared with Dougall. Beales, 41, was sentenced to four years for possession.
Rachel Dougall, pictured left in holding cell as she waited to be sentenced in Bali last year, describes her alleged accomplice, 57-year-old grandmother, Lindsay Sandiford, pictured right, as pure evil
Poor conditions: Kerobakan Prison in Bali, where Ms Dougall was held, has frequent floods
Dougall insists she pleaded guilty to failing to report a drug-connected crime only because the authorities had promised she would not serve a prison sentence.
‘I was totally innocent, but they said that if I co-operated I would be free to stay with my daughter Kitty, who was six at the time,’ she says. ‘But they lied and caged me up like an animal.’
She also criticises the hypocrisy of a country that will put people to death by firing squad for using or selling drugs, yet allows substances such as crystal meth and crack cocaine to be freely used inside the prison system.
‘Most of the women were on drugs virtually every day. If you had money the guards would get you anything you wanted. Inmates in the men’s prison next door even paid prostitutes for overnight visits.’
Now reunited with Kitty in Brighton, where she grew up, Dougall says her life has been shattered and even claims that she lives in fear after receiving death threats from the woman known as the ‘Bali Granny’.
Horror: Rachel Dougall says this picture was taken of her in Kerobakan Prison, Bali, after bullying inmates forcibly dressed her up
This image is strikingly at odds with the popular one of a vulnerable Sandiford weeping as she knits in jail, and Rachel adds, ‘That woman is pure evil. Her story about being coerced is rubbish. She wants the public to think she did it out of fear for her children’s lives, but that’s a total lie.
‘She’s not some tragic pawn doing it under duress. She blames me for her downfall and says she will have me killed. I’ve been told my life and my child’s life are at risk.’
The youngest of seven children, Dougall always wanted to settle down in Asia – even though she hates the food. It was a dream she would share with Ponder, whom she first met as an impressionable 16-year-old schoolgirl when he visited friends in Brighton.
He frequently came to the seaside town because his mother, a retired antiques dealer, was living in nearby Lewes. Twelve years ago, Dougall moved to be with him in London, where they rented homes in fashionable areas in Chelsea. Ponder, she says, made a good living selling expensive watches and as a property developer.
They travelled often and lived in India for a while. But it was Bali that captivated them. After Kitty was born, Dougall decided she wanted her daughter to grow up there.
‘It was my idea to move there two-and-a-half years ago,’ she says. ‘It was the beginning of a dream. We had a three-bedroom villa with a large swimming pool and marble floors. Life was wonderful and it was a great place for a child.’
But life on the tropical paradise island turned sour on May 25 last year, Kitty’s sixth birthday. ‘We were preparing for a party the following day with a friend who had come over to help out. I decided to go to Echo Beach to get some food from Sticky Fingers, but as I headed for my car, I was suddenly surrounded by about 12 Indonesian police officers screaming at me.
Caught: Sandiford gave evidence against the others after being caught, pictured, at Bali¿s airport with a suitcase full of cocaine on May 19 last year
Suspects: Ms Dougall pictured with her childhood sweetheart and fellow suspect Julian Ponder who was originally believed by police to be the brains behind the drug syndicate
‘It was so scary. I didn’t realise that Julian had been held elsewhere or that the whole thing had begun with Sandiford being stopped at the airport with a suitcase full of drugs. She apparently implicated me and Julian, who had been her friend for 20 years, as part of some gang.’
Dougall says she had only met Sandiford a few times and once invited her to stay in the villa for a week. ‘I didn’t really know her and would never have broken the law,’ she insists. ‘If I had had any inkling that she was involved in drugs I would never have let her near my home and my child. My daughter is everything to me.’
Implicated: Rachel's partner Julian Ponder pictured in custody in Bali a year ago
Dougall was bundled into her house and handcuffed to a chair while a terrified Kitty cried hysterically. She says she went white with shock when police searching the child’s bedroom discovered a cigarette box containing cocaine.
‘They said it was Julian’s, but I had not seen it before. I was shocked and very angry to think that anyone could have been stupid enough to put something potentially lethal in my child’s room.’
She knew she was in serious trouble. ‘Drugs in Bali are such a big thing. You just don’t do it. There is a big sign as you walk through the airport warning that the penalty is death. I would never dream of doing drugs, let alone be involved.’
Just before midnight they brought Ponder to the villa and searched the house again. Another box containing cocaine was found in the couple’s bedroom, stashed inside a handbag Dougall had not used in months. She believes the police planted it.
‘I have never seen Julian do cocaine, so I did not believe it was his. I smoke cigarettes but I had never seen those boxes before. They were never even dusted for fingerprints.’
Held in a bug-infested 18ft by 12ft police cell with more than a dozen other women, including Sandiford, Dougall was desperate not to be separated from her child and agreed to co-operate with the police. Conditions were harsh. The toilet was a hole in the ground and they shared one sink, in which they washed. ‘When it rained the sewage would overflow into the area and the smell was unbearable,’ Dougall says. ‘Invariably, I was caught short when the worst of the effluence was coming through.’
Dougall says she was equally terrified of Sandiford and of facing a firing squad. ‘That woman threatened to have me killed and I was seriously intimidated by her size. She has got a foul mouth and can be very aggressive.
Low point: Dougall, pictured in her cell, said she contemplated suicide but thoughts of her daughter Kitty kept her going
Suspect: Paul Beales, right, was also arrested and later sentenced to four years in prison for possession
‘I didn’t eat or sleep for a week,’ she recalls. ‘I was angry at Julian because I only got involved with Sandiford because of him, so we broke up.
‘I think she set us up as fall guys because they promised her some kind of deal to avoid the death penalty. She was probably lied to as much as I was. But in her case she deserves everything she gets.’
Dougall was so shocked by her one-year sentence that she collapsed and had to be held up by two woman guards. Her daughter visited her in prison ‘about half a dozen times, but it was heart-wrenching for us both. She couldn’t understand why I wasn’t coming home and she had to be dragged away screaming. Afterwards I had to be sedated because I was so agitated. In the end I told my parents to take her back to Britain.’
She was then kept in the dark about her mother’s whereabouts until she returned to the UK.
Life in the notorious Hotel K was so appalling that Dougall contemplated suicide. ‘I got beaten up a few times because the press called me the “Queen of Bali”. I would cover up my face and take the beatings as they punched and kicked me.
Ordeal: Dougall, pictured behind bars in Bali, says she was locked up with drug addicts, HIV-positive inmates and sexually aggressive lesbians
Dougall's former partner Ponder, pictured leaving his Bali cell, is serving six years for drugs possession
She says, ‘The first occasion was by some South African who was addicted to crystal meth and beat the hell out of me one night. Sandiford would scream abuse and threats whenever our paths crossed – which I tried to ensure wasn’t very often.
‘I thought about killing myself many times, but what kept me going was my lovely daughter. I didn’t want to leave her without a mother. Knowing she was waiting at the end of my year gave me the strength.’
Drug use was rife. ‘It’s lawless. Some of my cellmates were addicts and would get strung out. They tried to force me to do crack and meth, but I resisted, even when they pushed the crack pipe into my face.’
Dougall’s physical condition continued to deteriorate. Her weight fell from about 9 st 4 lb to 7 st 1 lb and her once-thick auburn hair fell out in clumps.
‘I kept getting ill – I nearly died after collapsing with pneumonia in February this year. The British Embassy didn’t want to know. They refused to pay for my treatment.’
Accusation: Lindsay Sandiford, 56, who accused Ms Dougall of being part of a British 'gang of four' cocaine smuggling syndicate, sits in her cell knitting while on death row in Kerobokan prison
Home: This is the villa where Rachel Dougall and Julian Ponder were living before they were arrested
She also claims an aggressive lesbian who ‘ran’ the block made frequent sexual advances.
‘Because I rebuffed her, she would force me to dress up in leather or other fancy clothes and dance like a stripper while the other women laughed and pushed me around. I was humiliated.’
Dougall, one of six white women in a prison population of 286, says sexual assaults were commonplace and that she fought off several attempts by both the male guards and some inmates: ‘I did what I had to do in order to stay alive.’
She insists that, although she is no longer involved with Julian, she has no doubt of his innocence. ‘I’ve racked my brains and tried to remember if there were signs that I missed, but I don’t think so. I just cannot believe he would be stupid enough to put our child’s future at risk in such a way.
‘His crime was knowing a woman who is evil. And I suppose if I’m truthful I don’t rule out the possibility that we might get back together in the future.
‘But who knows? I’m gutted that my dream of living in paradise ended so tragically. I love Bali, but I’ll never set foot there again.’
Free: Rachel Dougall pictured in Brighton earlier this month after being released from prison in Bali after a year
Back home: Rachel Dougall pictured on a yacht in Brighton Marina after spending 12 months a Bali prison for drugs offences
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