Drug mules Lisa Stocker, Jon Collyer and accomplice Phineas Float were today given a dramatic reprieve from Indonesia’s harsh anti-drugs laws as they were sentenced for trafficking cocaine
Three Brits who smuggled £300,000 worth of cocaine into Bali stuffed in packets of the Angel Delight were today given a last-minute reprieve and will be back in UK in months.
Drug mules Lisa Stocker, 39, her partner, Jon Collyer, 39, and accomplice Phineas Float, 31, feared they could be executed under Indonesia’s strict anti-drugs laws. Collyer, 38, and Stocker, 39, were arrested in Bali’s international airport on February 1 after being stopped by customs at the X-ray machine. 992 grams of the Class A drug was found concealed across 10 sachets of Angel Delight in Collyer’s luggage combined with 7 similar sachets in his partner’s suitcase.
The couple faced the death penalty and previously begged for freedom despite Indonesia’s strict anti-drug legislation. But today a judge at Denpasar central court chose not to impose the death penalty after they admitted smuggling the narcotics into the island.
Instead they were given a year in hell-hole prisons before they are likely booted out of the country. Given time served, the trio will likely be back in the UK by January.
Mum-of-three Stocker, 39, remained silent when she was handed her sentence alongside her husband Collyer. Float, 31, was handed the same lenient sentence and will spend his time in Bali’s infamous Kerobokan Prison. The court heard had agreed to take part in the plot for a “reward” of 500,000 Indonesia Rupiah – the same as just £22.50. “Always check what is in your bag before you travel,” Collyer told reporters when he left the court.
The mules, who are all from East Sussex, pleaded guilty to smuggling 922 grams of cocaine disguised in 10 packets of the popular dessert Angel Delight. Stocker and Collyer, from East Sussex, had travelled from the UK through Qatar and were arrested following a routine X-Ray bag search when they landed in Bali, on February 1.
Police later arrested Phineas Ambrose Float, 31, after a controlled operation which saw the other two suspects hand the drugs to him at the Grand Mas Airport Hotel carpark in Denpasar. He is being tried separately. Police are said to have used the couple to lure Float by sending Collyer and Stocker to meet him in an airport car park – where the trio were due to meet for an exchange on February 3.
The group managed to slip past Indonesian authorities twice before, but were caught on their third attempt, said Ponco Indriyo, the deputy director of the Bali Police Narcotics Unit.
In a previous court appearance, last week, Stocker issued a grovelling apology to the judge crying that she “won’t trust people so easily again”. The mum-of-three wept as she claimed to Judge Heriyanti that she had no idea what was in the dessert mix packets.
She said: “I didn’t know the packages were cocaine. I apologise. From now on I won’t trust people so easily and will be more careful. Collyer, who comforted his wife throughout proceedings, uttered just five words and said: “I won’t do it again.”
Float, who has previously been jailed in the UK for armed robbery and drug-dealing, told journalists gathered to “f**k off” as he was led into the courtroom last week. He previously told the court “I was very stupid” and has spent months in Bali’s notorious hell-hole Kerobokan prison.
Last week he told the court: “I was very stupid to take the packages of cocaine. I regret it and apologise.” Stocker previously claimed that she had been given the Angel Delight packages in the UK by a friend to bring to Bali. She claimed that she had been framed on the second day of their trial on June 10.
She said: “Jon and I had been to Bali twice carrying packages from (this friend). I was shocked after finding out it was cocaine.” Collyer meanwhile told the court that he had not been given money to go to Bali and that he paid the cost of flights and hotels himself.
However, police prosecutor Made Umbara alleged that a man in the UK who allegedly gave Stocker and Collyer the cocaine, paid Collyer £2,130 to cover the cost of accommodation and flights from the UK to Bali.
People found guilty of breaking Indonesia’s strict drug laws typically face extremely harsh punishments, including lengthy prison sentences or, in some cases, execution by a firing squad.
According to data by the Ministry of Immigration and Corrections’, around 530 people, including 96 foreigners, are on death row in Indonesia, mostly for drug-related crimes. The UN Office on Drugs and Crime says the country is a major drug-smuggling hotspot despite having some of the strictest drug laws in the world – partly because international drug gangs target its young population.
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