Schapelle Corby - My Story

Schapelle Corby walked out of Kerobokan Prison in 2014, leaving behind a dark hellhole of violence, corruption and squalor, and straight into a global media circus.

She had been Hotel Ks most famous inmate.

Schapelle was a 27-year-old beauty-school student when, in 2004, Bali customs officers found 4.2 kilograms of marijuana in her boogie-board bag. She was convicted of a crime she still vehemently denies committing.

She spent ten years in Hotel K, where she survived unimaginable horrors, corrupt guards, degrading conditions and abuse at the hands of other prisoners, but also, amazingly, found the love of her life a love that still burns strong.

In this revised and updated edition of My Story, first published in 2006, Schapelle describes her descent into madness and finding her way back, the chaos of her release, the trials of surviving outside on parole and, eventually, her dramatic return to Australia, all the while hounded mercilessly by the media.

This is the first time since 2006 that Schapelle has spoken, driven by a determination to show she has emerged, scarred, but with her dignity, humour and courage intact.

Written with bestselling author Kathryn Bonella, this is a deeply unsettling but utterly compelling tale of what should have been a holiday in paradise but instead turned into 13 years of living hell. You wont be able to put it down.

I dedicate this book to all those living in a waking nightmare. There is a light at the end of the tunnel... just have to wait for it... Bloody long tunnel.

S itting on my jail mattress, holding up a little compact mirror, I brush on bronzer and put on some cherry lip gloss, then snap the compact shut. I dont know how many more times Ill do this before they come to get me. Its Friday and Im checking out of Hotel K after ten years well, nine years and three months, plus 36 days in police cells, but whos counting? I dont feel excited. I feel flat. The interminable days, nights, weeks, months and years have squashed me into a state of complete numbness.

Several hot, sticky hours pass. I start wiping off my make-up. The cells are being locked. The womens block key is kept outside the jail, so nothing will happen now. Oh well, guess itll be Monday. Theres symmetry to this on my very first weekend in jail, I was also waiting for Monday to get out.

I pick up a book, lie down and read. Its familiar. Ive read hundreds of books in here and weeks go by where I barely get off this mattress except to use the toilet. Im not disappointed. I wasnt excited.

Flatlining has kept me alive in here.

* * *

Its Monday. I brush on my bronzer, patting it into my skin until it vanishes. I put on some more. I know outside theres a pack of TV crews and photographers waiting for me my sister told me but this make-up is not for them. Its my nervous habit. I check my lip gloss. I still feel nothing.

Someone comes to my cell. Schapelle, youre leaving now.

I jump up, sprinting out of my cell, along the footpath and through the block door. Im moving at lightning speed, like a spooked cat, for the first time in years, saying no goodbyes to ensure no one gets any photos of me. Ten years of sneaky shots drove me to a point of insanity literally. Today, theyre not getting anything.

I race across the jail and into the hall. Its full of guards. Usually theyre loitering in the garden, but not today. Two inmates arrive with my bags, as instructed, and a couple of female guards standing at a table start rifling through them. They tell me its a security check but no one else checks out like this. The other guards clamour, jostling with their phones held high in the air over each others heads to get their shots, as the women hold up a bra then underpants for display, one by one.

Are they being paid by media to film me? I wonder, then snap. What are you doing? Give me those! I snatch my underpants and bra out of their hands, scoop my clothes off the table and shove them into my bags. Then Im being led across the hall the guards all trailing with their phones still held high. Im about to see the boss. A final good riddance. I hate him and Im pretty sure he doesnt like me.

He wants me to pose with him for a photo shaking hands as I accept my release papers. No, no way. I rear back. Why would you want a photo with me! A mass of guards surrounds us. I dont care. No, Im not doing it, no, no, I say, pissed off.

Nick from Channel 7s security team, a former SAS guy who weve called my uncle to get in, is beside me. I plan to do one interview with Channel 7 after I get out. He tries to calm me down: Come on, just do it so you can go. He doesnt know what this jail boss has put me through. For a decade, theyve used me, treated me differently. Why should he get this one last piece of me? No, no, no. Fuck off. Nick and my brother-in-law Wayan urge, Come on, just do it. I relent a quick snap, then I throw a shawl over my head and stick a hat on to hold it down, so no one can get shots of me. I hadnt planned on hiding my face the media will later say I did this to avoid ruining Channel 7s exclusive, but I wasnt asked to.

I dont know when it is that I first step foot outside. I miss the big moment because Im propelled, head down, through a jumble of guards and police making a tunnel through the pack of pushy photographers. Then, Im at the prison van, stepping up, climbing inside. I sit, slide across. One other prisoner, also being freed, gets in the back, along with several police. The doors close, were off. Well, we barely move, but were rocking from the force of photographers pushing on the car, their cameras going clack, clack, clack, scratch, scratch, scratch all over the windows. Im calm. I expected this. It brings back memories of going to court.

We roll forward and through the scrum. Photographers start running alongside us, their lenses pressed hard up against the glass until, one by one, theyre flung off as we gather speed. Next stop, the prosecutors office. Its the same media mobbing, then were onto the parole office.

This time, I exit through the scrum and get into a private car. Im no longer a prisoner, but not free either. The photographers throng around the car, rocking it. I feel like a crab, I say a hermit crab hiding in my shell. I spot a tiny camera in my face. Oh yep, Im being filmed. My sister warned me about this its part of the Channel 7 arrangement. I need a bit of money to live on, and we hope it will short-circuit the frantic media chase for me. So wed agreed to GoPros in the car. I dont mind; its a practicality. I just need to get through this.

* * *

Its amazing what the human spirit can endure and adapt to. If someone had told me that I would spend ten years sleeping alongside rats, feral cats and fifteen girls in a tiny, stinking-hot cell that partly floods with human waste whenever the Balinese hole-in-the-ground toilet blocks, I would have said no way can I survive that.

If someone had told me that Id be sentenced to that life for twenty years, I would have laughed at such a ridiculous notion. And yet...

When I flew to Bali on 8 October 2004, I imagined my biggest problem was going to be deciding which sarong to wear with which bikini. I was so happy and excited to be going on this holiday two weeks of surfing, and celebrating my sisters thirtieth birthday.