Aussie nightclub manager leaves Bali after jail release
Melbourne man David Van Iersel is being deported from Bali after serving nine months in the notorious Kerobokan jail for cocaine possession.
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Former Australian nightclub manager David Van Iersel is today being deported from Bali, after serving nine months in Bali’s notorious Kerobokan jail for cocaine possession.
The convicted Aussie cocaine user, who had moved to the holiday island for a fresh start from Melbourne’s seedy nightclub scene, is at Bali’s Ngurah Rai airport, awaiting a flight to Perth.
Looking fit, wearing a black mask, grey T-shirt and beige shorts, the 39-year-old left the island’s immigration detention room at 9.15am local time, and refused to answer media questions.
He had spent two days in the detention room, with two other foreigners, awaiting deportation.
“Van Iersel was deported by Garuda flight GA 0728 to Perth. The flight is at 11.40 AM. His condition is healthy and he looks happy because today he can go home,” Ngurah Rai immigration spokesman, Mr Putu Suhendra said.
Van Iersel and fellow Aussie drug pal William Cabantog were busted by Indonesian police doing lines of cocaine in his managers office at Canggu’s trendy Lost City nightclub in July last year.
Following a public tip-off, Indonesian police raided the club at 2.30am on July 19 and found 1.12 grams of cocaine in Cabantog’s jeans as well as a set of scales in his rented motor scooter. Both men admitted to snorting lines of cocaine and urine tests registered positive to the narcotic. Cabantog admitted to buying the drugs for about $300 from another Australian known only as ‘Joel’, who is understood to have fled Indonesia after the raid.
Since July, Van Iersel has been shackled, dressed in orange jail overalls and paraded barefoot before the press and public. He has been threatened with death and rape by hardened criminals in the globally feared Kerobokan jail and all the while he has maintained a sphinx-like silence.
Possession of 1.12 grams of cocaine attracts a maximum sentence of 12 years jail in Indonesia. Both men pleaded guilty and the judge found that both men were victims of the narcotics trade and were addicts. Van Iersel was sentenced to nine months’ jail, less time served and Cabantog was given 12 months.
From the outset, Van Iersel’s lawyer established his client as a drug addict and attempted to have him transferred from Denpasar’s police holding cells to a rehabilitation centre. That move failed and in November Van Iersel was sent to Kerobokan jail – which is also known as ‘Hotel K’.
During his trial, Van Iersel told the court that his drug issues were associated with long working hours and personal problems.
“I have had a problem in Australia and one of the main reasons I came to Bali was to move away from all that. I had some very bad luck last year (2018) with a business and a relationship and I was obviously drinking too much and going out too much.
“The opportunity to come to Bali was good for the sun and a cleaner lifestyle,” he said.
Van Iersel, who grew up in the Melbourne suburb of Keilor, moved to Bali in 2018 to launch the Lost City. He had previously been a partner in a Fitzroy bar and worked as the manager and cocktail designer at the restaurant and bar Captain Baxter in beachside St Kilda.
In court, Van Iersel admitted to being on a rollercoaster of drug abuse for more than 20 years, which began at a party in 2002 when he was 18 years old. In 2017 a bout of depression was proceeded by the collapse of a romance and the failure of his business which triggered a drug binge that lasted until his arrest in Bali.
Indonesian drug assessor Mr Ririn Wijayanti said that when Van Iersel came to Bali, he replaced using cocaine use with the local medication called Prohiper – a Ritalin-equivalent used to treat ADHD but returned to taking cocaine.
It is understood that Van Iersel, who attended a rehab while in jail, went directly to Perth to start yet another new life with his girlfriend Nikkita Finn – a Bali-based Western Australian graphic artist.
“I was supposed to be moving back to Australia permanently this month … It has been a heart wrenching and often very outwardly emotional decision for me but it’s all to do with the person I love and for us to be together so in the end there is no other decision to be made,” Ms Finn recently posted on her now deleted Facebook account.
Originally published as Aussie nightclub manager leaves Bali after jail release
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