An exclusive photo obtained by the Mirror shows Lisa Stocker 40, and her partner, Jon Collyer, 39, at the priority counter in Bali – just four months after they were jailed for a £300,000 cocaine plot
Drug mule Brit Lisa Stocker and her partner checked in for their flight home at a Business Class desk, after being spared the firing squad in Bali.
Our exclusive photograph shows mum-of-three Stocker, 40, and her partner, Jon Collyer, 39, at the priority counter – just four months after they were jailed for a £300,000 cocaine plot. Along with accomplice Phineas Float, 31, they feared they could be executed under Indonesia’s strict drugs laws before they were sentenced in August.
Instead they were given terms of just a year, which were remarkably slashed even further under laws which allow reductions at Christmas and to mark an independence day holiday. The move left them free to board flight QR963 from Bali to Doha at 6.50pm on Tuesday, then allowing them to connect for a UK flight.
If they travelled in business, seats would have cost at least £2,000 each. A source said: “It’s staggering they have been allowed to leave Bali already, given its stance on drug crime. But to see them checking into the premium counter is breathtaking. Whichever cabin they ended up in, they can consider it an incredible Christmas gift to have been released so early. They were almost certainly home in time to celebrate New Year’s Eve.”
They were snared trying to bring 992 grams of cocaine stashed in 17 packets of the Angel Delight into the paradise island. But a judge at Denpasar central court chose not to impose the death penalty after they admitted smuggling charges. The court heard Float agreed to take part in the plot for a “reward” of 500,000 Indonesia Rupiah – the equivalent of just £22.50.
Despite Indonesia’s famously tough laws, Prosecutor Made Umbara had urged Judge Heriyanti not to hand down the death penalty. It was seen as a dramatic show of tolerance by the Indonesian authorities. Stocker and Collyer were arrested at Bali’s international airport on February 1 after a routine X-Ray of their luggage detected the suspicious packages. They had travelled from the UK to Bali via Qatar.
The couple told police that they did not know the packages contained the drugs and believed they were delivering British treats to a friend. After their arrest, Stocker and Collyer turned informants for Indonesian police and agreed to lure their accomplice to an ambush.
Float was arrested on February 3 when he turned up at the Grand Mas Airport Hotel carpark to collect the haul. The Mirror understands Float was released from prison on December 5 and held in a detention centre until he was deported on December 10.
An FCDO spokesperson said: “Three British nationals who were detained in Indonesia have now returned to the UK.”
Their release and deportation comes just weeks after Brit drugs mule Lindsay Sandiford, 69, was freed after 13 years on death row. The legal secretary spent more than a decade in Bali’s notorious Kerobokan prison after being caught with £1.6million of cocaine in 2012. But Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper secured a bilateral agreement with the Indonesian authorities to clinch her release in October.
Sandiford was repatriated alongside fellow British national Shahab Shahabadi, 35, who has been serving a life sentence since 2014 after being arrested during a probe into an international drug trafficking network. Both Britons have suffered severe health difficulties, officials say.
The Foreign Office has refused to say if Sandiford will be taken into custody or released immediately now she is home. But Indonesia officials claimed she would be sent to prison after being repatriated back to Britain.
Her “detention will be moved to the United Kingdom” as part of the deal, an official stated, revealing she still faces some time behind bars. The Foreign office was approached for comment about Stocker and Collyer’s return.
