• iconNews
  • videos
  • entertainment
  • Home
  • News
    • UK News
    • US News
    • Australia
    • Ireland
    • World News
    • Weird News
    • Viral News
    • Sport
    • Technology
    • Science
    • True Crime
    • Travel
  • Entertainment
    • Celebrity
    • TV & Film
    • Netflix
    • Music
    • Gaming
    • TikTok
  • LAD Originals
    • Say Maaate to a Mate
    • Daily Ladness
    • Lad Files
    • UOKM8?
    • FreeToBe
    • Extinct
    • Citizen Reef
  • Advertise
  • Terms
  • Privacy & Cookies
  • LADbible Group
  • UNILAD
  • SPORTbible
  • GAMINGbible
  • Tyla
  • UNILAD Tech
  • FOODbible
  • License Our Content
  • About Us & Contact
  • Jobs
  • Latest
  • Topics A-Z
  • Authors
Facebook
Instagram
X
Threads
Snapchat
TikTok
YouTube

LAD Entertainment

YouTube

LAD Stories

Submit Your Content
Ex-inmates at Bali prison where British grandmother has spent 12 years on death row shared what it's like inside

Home> Community

Published 19:26 23 Apr 2025 GMT+1

Ex-inmates at Bali prison where British grandmother has spent 12 years on death row shared what it's like inside

Previous inmates describe the place as a 'nightmare'

Jess Battison

Jess Battison

Ex-inmates of the Bali prison where a British grandmother has spent 12 years on death row shared what it’s like inside.

Lindsay Sandiford has been behind bars at Kerobokan Prison in Indonesia since she was found with £1.6 million worth of cocaine in her suitcase in 2013.

Following the discovery of the 10.16lb of drugs while she travelled through Ngurah Rai International Airport, the now 68-year-old was sentenced to death by firing squad.

Advert

Having held her grandchildren for the first time in over a decade when they visited her, Sandiford has earned the nickname ‘grandmother’ at the prison, which is one of the country’s most notorious.

Making up the hundreds of inmates who have been housed there, the British nan has also been joined by many, many other people convicted of drug-related crimes.

Sandiford has spent over a decade on death row. (SONNY TUMBELAKA/AFP via Getty Images)
Sandiford has spent over a decade on death row. (SONNY TUMBELAKA/AFP via Getty Images)

Schapelle Corby was sentenced to 20 years in Kerobokan prison after smuggling 4.2kg of cannabis into Bali in 2005.

The Australian ended up serving nine years there, and has since released a book on her experience she describes as an ‘F***ing nightmare’.

Advert

Kathryn Bonella is a true-crime writer and spent time visiting the infamous prison for her book Hotel K.

She wrote about the dark reality of Kerobokan, as she recounted: “Schapelle Corby barely reacted when she found a prisoner hanging by a noose. The Bali Nine’s Scott Rush didn’t hesitate to help guards drag a body from the cell across the path from his cell; the dead inmate was covered in vomit and flies…”

Bonella said she heard of ‘wild sex nights’ where men paid sex workers to enter the prison as the guards would cheer prisoners on to ‘take turns’.

“The men,” she wrote, “share a squat toilet, usually blocked with faeces and stinking out the cell. Poor locals will spend months locked in this cell without being let out once.”

Corby was allowed to return to Aus. (Jason Childs/Getty Images)
Corby was allowed to return to Aus. (Jason Childs/Getty Images)

Advert

Paul Conibeer is a New Zealander who spent time in Kerobokan where he was imprisoned for almost a year after a dispute over an unpaid bill led to his arrest.

Speaking to Campbell Live, he claimed: “I've seen people get murdered in there, I've seen people get bashed, I've seen drug overdoses, one guy died in my arms from sickness.

“You could never kick anything in there—you take two steps forward and you get smashed back 25.

Conibeer also wrote a book, I Survived Kerobokan, about his time in the prison where he claimed: “The water is infected and you get rashes so you get sick every second week.”

Featured Image Credit: SONNY TUMBELAKA/AFP via Getty Images

Topics: True Crime, World News, Prison

Jess Battison
Jess Battison

Jess is a Senior Journalist with a love of all things pop culture. Her main interests include asking everyone in the office what they're having for tea, waiting for a new series of The Traitors and losing her voice at a Beyoncé concert. She graduated with a first in Journalism from City, University of London in 2021.

X

@jessbattison_

Advert

Advert

Advert

Choose your content:

10 hours ago
23 hours ago
a day ago
3 days ago
  • 10 hours ago

    Street interview with two girls out clubbing is seriously creeping people out

    Social media users have been left spooked by the short clip which is circulating online

    Community
  • 23 hours ago

    Man advised to call authorities after GoPro makes disturbing discovery when dropped into ocean

    The YouTuber had no idea what he'd found, but viewers were worried for him

    Community
  • a day ago

    Americans stunned after learning what a good salary in the UK is

    We all have our own take on what is 'good'

    Community
  • 3 days ago

    Everything known about 'euthanasia coaster' that has a terrifying simulation and 'kills everyone that rides it'

    The 'euthanasia rollercoaster' comes from the mind of Julijonas Urbonas who opened up about why he came up with it and how it works

    Community
  • Inside 'hellhole' prison where Brit faces decades 'rotting' after 'trying to smuggle £1.2million worth of drugs'
  • Why British grandmother has spent last 11 years awaiting execution on death row in Indonesian prison
  • How British grandmother who has spent 12 years on death row awaiting execution could be spared from death this year
  • Inside 'Indonesian Alcatraz' where inmates are executed by firing squad as British man faces death penalty