CLASSMATE RECALLS BALI DRUGS ACCUSED'S SCHOOL YEARS
Details emerge of tough years at school for ‘high achieving’ drug accused
A SCHOOL friend of Isaac Emmanuel Roberts has revealed more details about the Bali drug-accused’s past growing up in Toowoomba.
Nick Schuster flicked on the television Tuesday night to news of Mr Roberts’ arrest on charges of bringing methamphetamine and ecstasy into Bali, and immediately got the shock of his life.
Mr Schuster was in the same year as Mr Roberts at Downlands College, where the pair was part of the winning 1997 Darling Downs Mathematics Challenge team.
“As soon as they said his name I thought ‘I went to school with that guy’,” Mr Schuster said.
“I was shocked because I said to my friend ‘if there was anyone we thought (he was not that sort of person) and it would be very unlikely to be him.”
Mr Roberts did not have an easy childhood, according to Mr Schuster, who detailed how the drug accused experienced some troubled years as a teen in Toowoomba.
“He was the subject of a fair bit of bullying. A lot of it was directed towards him and he did it quite tough,” Mr Schuster said.
“He came out as an addict (at the Bali media conference) and I feel sorry for him. Maybe some of the experiences he went through ... might have affected him and resulted in him trying drugs and becoming addicted.”
Archives from The Chronicle reveal Mr Roberts was an intelligent young man, winning awards for his prowess in mathematics and geography.
Mr Roberts left Downlands in 1999 with a plethora of academic awards and an OP1.
In 2012, he won the National
Advanced Tax Dux Award.
He said in an interview at the time that he considered the award a career highlight.
“He was quite a friendly guy, quite quiet and kept to himself,”
Mr Schuster said.
“He was an intelligent fellow and he seemed pretty switched on.
“He was a quirky kind of guy and not the aggressive type.”
Customs allege Mr Roberts was caught with 14.32 grams of methamphetamine, 6.22 grams of ecstasy and 22ml of Alprazolam. News of his arrest shocked the community, with many
who knew Mr Roberts from his time in Toowoomba now questioning how such a highachiever could be accused of an offence in a foreign country that carries the death penalty.