Adelaide convicted drug smuggler Cassie Sainsbury says she was ‘raped’ in Colombian prison

Adelaide’s Cassie Sainsbury has opened up about her Colombian prison ordeal and shared a shocking confession.

Cassie Sainsbury has shared the full horror of her time in a Colombian prison, revealing she was raped while behind bars.

The convicted drug smuggler admitted she “gave up all hope” and was sure that she would be killed in notorious El Buen ­Pastor women’s jail.

The Adelaide personal trainer, who’s starring on the new season of Channel 7’s SAS Australia, was caught with a suitcase containing 5.8kg of cocaine in Colombia in April 2017, and sentenced to six years in prison.

Dubbed ‘Cocaine Cassie’, Sainsbury told the reality show that she experienced a “life of sadness and pain” while behind bars.

“I was almost sure that someone would kill me there,’ she said.

“It was such a horrible feeling that I gave up all hope.

“I had a lot of time to kind of process having been manipulated and tricked by someone I thought was my friend … having been raped.”

Sainsbury said she also saw fellow inmates committing suicide.

“That would kill themselves,’ she said. “I saw people hung from staircases, stabbings.”

Cassie Sainsbury for SAS Australia.

She ended up serving three years in jail before she was released, eventually returning to Adelaide in September last year.

Last month, she told The Advertiser she had been diagnosed with post traumatic stress disorder following her ordeal.

“It hit me quite hard, it was completely unexpected. I thought I was okay and then … I was having nightmares, I was reliving everything I went through in the last seven years,” Sainsbury said.

“I’d never really expressed emotion before, I just got through it,” she said.

“Thankfully I came out the other side. I managed to pull myself out of the rut.”

A personal trainer who once owned a gym on the Yorke Peninsula, Sainsbury has since launched her own online fitness program, Cassie Leigh Fitness, with help from her wife Tatiana.

“Tatiana absolutely loves it. She knows that me finding employment is not that easy. I don’t tick a lot of boxes anymore,” she said.

“When I told her I was going to go out and invest in myself, she was like, ‘Yeah, let’s do it, you’ll be great’.”

Cassie Sainsbury for SAS Australia.

Originally published as Adelaide convicted drug smuggler Cassie Sainsbury says she was ‘raped’ in Colombian prison