NEWS Drug mule’s jail revival Colombia’s Aussie turns life around
SMILING, healthy, happily teaching prisoners to speak English and shaving months off her jail sentence — this is drug mule Cassie Sainsbury as we have never seen her.
Over the past year in a Colombian jail, the 24-year-old Australian drug smuggler has turned her life around.
After early run-ins with other inmates at the tough El Buen Pastor women’s prison — home to Colombia’s toughest drug smugglers, murderers, political prisoners and paramilitary fighters — Sainsbury has now established a daily routine teaching English for two hours a day and studying Spanish.
She is a regular at the prison’s beauty salon and joins inmates in exercise classes, taking her fitness “very seriously”.
She may even have found her true calling as a language teacher after being offered a job by a local language school, a move that could cut months off her sentence.
“She has grown up a huge amount,” her lawyer Orlando Herran said. “Prison has changed her. She’s more mature.”
But despite her amazing transformation, she still feels lonely, longing for her family and missing home.
‘‘The hardest thing for her is being cooped up, locked away, every day the same,” Mr Herran said. “She says it drives her mad. And of course she has no visitors to soften the blow of it.
“On Saturdays and Sundays when the other inmates can share a meal or some time with family and friends, Cassie has nowhere to go. She misses her family a lot.”
Sainsbury’s arrest with almost 6kg of cocaine in South America’s drug capital in April 2017 made international headlines. Sentenced to six years in jail after a high-profile trial, she has overcome a series of health difficulties and clashes with other prisoners, settling into a relatively peaceful prison routine.
Now Mr Herran and criminal justice experts in Bogota are hopeful she could be free as soon as February after being offered a job with the Michigan School in Bogota.
School director Carlos Carrero said: “Cassandra is a blessing because she is a native speaker who is inside and she wants to turn her life around. We’re lucky to have her.”
Sainsbury declined to speak to the Sunday Territorian. But those who are regularly in contact with her have described the transformation of the former brothel worker and failed business owner into a respected member of the sprawling women’s jail.
After early run-ins with other prisoners and being moved through several prison wings, known as patios, Mr Herran said he had recently noticed significant mental and physical changes in his client.
Having seen her for the first time in over a year, Mr Herran said: “Cassandra looks healthier and she has lost weight. She looks much better. She has adapted to Colombian food and prison food is sitting better with her.
“She is also taking exercise very seriously.
“She is looking after herself. Colombian women look after themselves a lot. They are very groomed and she is definitely picking up the aesthetic.”
Sainsbury is living in Patio 5 with many “small-scale” drug dealers, after being in the highsecurity isolation area Patio 7.
She also spent a few days surrounded by former paramilitary and rebel prisoners in Patio 9.
“That was a complicated patio for her,” Mr Herran said. “It’s full of people that have committed serious crimes and people who have lived in rough environments and, therefore, are difficult people.
‘‘At the beginning, the international gang she’d been working with contacted someone in Patio 5 to intimidate her and to scare her into not speaking. So we quickly got her out of there, but I also advised her to not get involved because her security guarantees weren’t adequate. If someone wanted to harm her, they’d find a way.’’
Mr Herran represented Sainsbury until her sentencing in November 2017 but has only just returned as her counsel after funding for her defence stopped coming from the Australian government. He believes he is still owed money from Australia but doesn’t believe he will be paid.
‘‘From a legal perspective, she was completely abandoned,” he said.
“She’s been without a lawyer for so long, without someone to give her advice.”