Emotional and dishevelled Cassie Sainsbury attempts to navigate life in slum-like Colombian jail

CONSTANTLY crying and wearing the same clothes in which she was arrested, Cassie Sainsbury is at a loss as she tries to navigate her new life in a slum-like Colombian prison.

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Constantly crying and wearing the same clothes in which she was arrested, Cassie Sainsbury is at a loss as she tries to navigate her new life in a slum-like Colombian prison.

An American woman, who walked free from El Buen Pastor prison on Tuesday after her own 17 month sentence, explained she and another older woman had supported Cassie as she navigated life inside Bogota’s biggest women’s jail since her arrest on April 11.

“Because she is so young there are a lot of people trying to take advantage of her,” said the woman, who did not wish to be named.

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Buen Pastor prison in Bogota where Cassie Sainsbury is being house. Picture: Joe Parkin Daniels

Soldiers patrol inside the jail. Picture: Joe Parkin Daniels

“Not only that, when she was at the police station they took most of her stuff — all of her clothes, her money.”

The woman said Cassie was hoping for more support from the Australian government, after she was informed she would be visited by consular staff only every three months.

“She’s upset because she needs clothes, she needs things,” the woman said.

“She’s just wearing a sweater and pants and a top, the same ones. I offered her something but she said no thank you.”

Cassie is being housed in Patio 5 at El Buen Pastor, with several other foreigners including 28 Mexicans and a woman from Holland. There are nine patios holding prisoners of various levels of security, with violent criminals and drug users in separate wings.

The women are fed three small meals a day in the compound’s rancho or canteen, mainly chicken or beef with rice or potatoes and salad. They start waking from 4am to find space in the crowded showers before a headcount outside at 7am, after which they return to their patios. Classes are offered Monday to Friday.

A former inmate told News Corp Sainsbury was in danger of being taken advantage of. Picture: Joe Parkin Daniels

“She is in a cell with one lady,” the woman said of Cassie.

“She sleeps on the top bunk. It’s a very small cell.

“The food is terrible, there is not much of it and you could throw the food to the wall and it would come back and hit you.”

The woman said she had advised Cassie to find something to fill her time and that she was planning to start Spanish lessons next week.

But her most pressing problem is finding good legal advice.

Cassie has met with several lawyers and most have advised she plead guilty in order to avoid the maximum 25 year sentence she faces for trying to smuggle 6.234kg of cocaine.

“I explained to her, ‘don’t let people take advantage of you. Because you’re not from here they think you have money’, so they will bother her,” the woman said.

Sainsbury is being kept in a tiny cell like this one Picture: CICR

“I said just be careful, and don’t make too many friends because you shouldn’t trust people.

“She needs a good lawyer, because one lawyer wants to charge her so much money and she does not really understand everything that is happening.”

Cassie is communicating daily with her fiance Scotty Broadbridge using a prepaid phone card.

“I didn’t see her when she first arrived, but somebody took me up to her the next day,” she said.

“She was crying, I told her it will get better as the days go by but just try to keep yourself busy.

“She talks to her boyfriend and she’s upset because people are saying things like she needed money and that’s why she came here and tried to smuggle drugs.

“None of that’s true, she’s only 22, she’s very young, that’s why I told her don’t let people take advantage of you.”

- Additional reporting Joe Parkin Daniels

Originally published as Emotional and dishevelled Cassie Sainsbury attempts to navigate life in slum-like Colombian jail