Cassie Sainsbury says her 60 Minutes interview was ‘manipulated’

DRUG smuggler Cassie Sainsbury was ridiculed for forgetting her phone’s password on 60 Minutes. Now she says the program was “manipulating” her interview.

MOST of us wouldn’t be able to forget the password on our phones if we tried.

So when convicted drug mule Cassie Sainsbury told 60 Minutes she forgot how to access her mobile — which contained vital evidence in relation to her court case — eyebrows were raised.

However, the 22-year-old, who is serving a six-year sentence in Colombia’s El Buen Pastor prison for trying to smuggle 5.8 kilograms of cocaine out of Bogota airport in packages of headphones, has taken aim at Channel Nine over the interview.

The former personal trainer from Adelaide revealed in an interview with Kyle and Jackie O on KIIS 106.5 this morning that she wasn’t happy with the way she was portrayed in the emotional television piece.

“Basically I wasn’t happy about any of the interview,” she told the station. “A lot of what I said was cut out and so everything was sort of switched and changed and manipulated to make what I was saying look worse.”

She said the main part of her story which as been “misunderstood” because of that interview was the part she was talking about the password on her phone.

Sainsbury claims her interview was manipulated. Picture: Channel 9.

“When I was in the interview, I was being asked questions and I was responding with what I’d been saying to my lawyer and everyone else,” she said.

“When they (the Colombian prosecutor) came to me and asked for the password, I had already been in prison for five months.

“I was trying to remember it and I said to my lawyer: ‘Look, make a meeting with the prosecutor and give me my phone and I’ll try to get into it in front of them both’.

“And that is what happened. It’s not that I didn’t want to remember or give them the password. I just couldn’t remember.”

She claims that the prosecutor said she could have a go on her phone to try to remember the password — but only after she had been sentenced.

Cassie said she was gobsmacked when she saw the footage played back to her on television.

“I thought: ‘What on earth is this?’,” she said. “I said I wanted to get into the phone in front of them but none of that was put on air.”

Lisa Evans said her daughter has stayed strong. Picture: News Corp Australia

Her mother, Lisa Sainsbury also talked to Kyle and Jackie O and described how she was surprised by her daughter’s resilience.

She described how Cassie was crammed in a small “patio” — a section inside a Colombian prison — with 400 other women and mattresses on the floor when she was first incarcerated.

However, she has now moved to a smaller, secure patio with just 20 other women.

Lisa said Cassie can speak fluent Spanish, despite not being able to speak a word before, and she has made friends as she settles into prison life.

“I’m still scared for her safety every day,” she said.

“I had no idea what I was expecting when I walked in. I expected Patio 7 to be worse than it is.

“But it’s like, and I say this but don’t take it as lightly as it sounds, it’s like a dormitory. When I go in and visit the girls, they are all very polite to me.”

Cassie described the conditions inside her patio, saying she sleeps on double-bunked beds and has a strict amount of clothes to wear.

Sainsbury was carrying 5.8kg of cocaine in her headphones. Picture Channel Nine.

However, she added she had found several people behind bars who have helped her see that her situation “isn’t the end of the world”.

“I keep my distance from the people I know are trying to make trouble, I’m friendly with everyone, and that’s it,” Sainsbury said.

Cassie also revealed that she broke up with her fiance Scott in February and that it had been kept quiet.

“Things just weren’t good for us,” she said. “From the moment I got in here, it was doomed.”

Dubbed “Cocaine Cassie” since her arrest, Sainsbury could taste freedom in early 2020 with time already served and good behaviour if a Colombian judge finds she qualifies for early release.

He mother said Australia did not know the real Cassie.

“She is a fun loving, animal loving, hard working girl. She owned her own business, OK it failed, but she did have a go.

“She’s determined to do the right thing, she’s a good girl, never been in trouble with the law ever in her life.

Sainsbury could taste freedom in early 2020. Picture: Ivan Valencia

“I want people to understand that what people know about Cassie is only from a year ago onwards. They don’t know Cassie before that, the beautiful, fun loving girl who cares about her family, friends and animals.

“She worked for the Country Fire Service (CFS) when we had the fires over here (Adelaide).

“She just fell into the wrong crowd, it can happen to anybody. This proves without a doubt that it can happen to anybody. I’d like to say to all the kids out there who think it’s a quick buck, it doesn’t work that way.”

Originally published as Cassie Sainsbury says her 60 Minutes interview was ‘manipulated’