Harriet Wran: Farm life is road to recovery for former ice addict
Harriet Wran has put her sordid past as an ice addict and jail inmate behind her to start building a new life on the idyllic family farm she one day hopes to take over. Here is how the now-blonde transformed herself.
- How Harriet Wran’s dad’s illness and death triggered drug addiction
- Harriet Wran sentenced to four years jail for role in murder
Exclusive: Harriet Wran has put her sordid past as an ice addict and jail inmate behind her to start building a new life on the idyllic family farm she one day hopes to take over.
The daughter of former Labor premier Neville Wran has begun an agribusiness degree and looks a picture of glowing health, surrounded by the animals that she credits for lifting her spirits following her drug-fuelled fall from grace.
MORE NEWS:
Supervisor charged over strawberry sabotage
Karl’s in-laws host special pre-wedding high-tea
New codes for loud parents at kids sport matches
Photographs of her on the $2 million rural property in the Yarramalong Valley reveal how Wran is now unrecognisable from the pallid young woman who was arrested after a sleepless six-day ice bender in 2014.
She served two years in prison for her role in a drug-fuelled robbery that ended with the murder of ice dealer Daniel McNulty, 48.
Since her release, the former private schoolgirl has been spending time on the 50-hectare property her late father and publisher mother Jill bought in Ravensdale.
“It’s more a retreat than a farm,” a source close to Wran said, adding, “Harriet has been spending a lot of time there recovering.
“She loves the tranquillity and enjoys a special bond with the animals, the two dogs, the Muscovy and yellow-billed Pekin ducks — they’re all pets to her.
“It’s become her sanctuary and some weekends she will run horse coaching sessions for children.”
Wran has now signed up to a three-year agribusiness degree at the University of New England studying agricultural economics, farm product merchandising and business management. She hopes the degree will help her run the family farm full-time.
Wran is recovering from her ice addiction after two years behind bars at Silverwater Correctional Centre for her role in the robbery and murder of Mr McNulty.
“It’s going to be a long process and it’s going to be hard,” the young woman said following her release from jail in September 2016.
She previously described how animals help her relax in times of anxiety, telling the court during her trial, “I adore animals and I missed them so much in jail”.
Since her release from jail, Wran has been living in an alcohol-free home with her mother in affluent Woollahra in Sydney’s eastern suburbs, and has volunteered part-time working with animals at Bondi Vet Dr Chris Brown’s clinic, which she finds “calming” and “therapeutic”.
The heiress has previously spoken of her battles with bipolar and the crippling drug addiction that took her from Sydney’s moneyed eastern suburbs to the scene of a grisly killing in a Redfern housing commission drug den in 2014.
Having dabbled in drugs at university, Wran developed a growing addiction, culminating in several unsuccessful stints in rehab. Her father’s death in April 2014 sent her into a downward spiral.
Numb on ice, she and then-boyfriend of two weeks Michael Lee knocked on the door of a Redfern housing commission apartment with Lloyd Edward Haines.
Once open, the trio burst through the door and robbed Mr McNulty of ice for a $650 score before Lee stabbed him to death.
Haines and Lee were jailed by the NSW Supreme Court for at least 11 years and 13 years respectively for the murder. Wran pleaded guilty to accessory after the fact to murder and was sentenced in the NSW Supreme Court to a minimum of two years and a maximum of four years and was released on parole on September 13, 2016.
Friends say the former Sydney Church of England Grammar School pupil looks and behaves like a different person and wants to help battle the ice epidemic when she’s got enough “clean time” behind her.
Earlier this year she planned to work in a Ted Noffs Foundation thrift store selling second-hand clothing to raise cash to treat drug and alcohol-addicted youths but recently decided she was not ready.
“I also know that I have to be vigilant. It’s part of having been addicted to something, especially ice,” she said at the time of her trial.
How our car-azy adventure has bean a lifesaver
Telegraph reporter Matthew Benns and cartoonist Warren Brown’s epic drive from London to Melbourne in a historic jalopy has raised more than $120,000 for the Royal Flying Doctor Service.
Read more
Millions to help hero’s mission to save kids from rare brain cancer
Professor Matt Dun lost his daughter to deadly DIPG. With the help of another brave little girl, he has received critical funds for his research into better treatments — and maybe, one day, a cure.
Read more