Sussex trio jailed for smuggling cocaine in Bali but spared the death penalty
Three people from Sussex, accused of drug offences in Indonesia, have been spared the death penalty.
Jonathan Christopher Collyer, 38, and his partner Lisa Stocker, 39, from Hastings were arrested on 1 February after they were found with 993 grams of cocaine worth around £271,000.
The drugs were hidden among sachets of powdered dessert mix.
Two days later, Phineas Ambrose Float, 31, was later detained as an accomplice after police snared him by arranging a delivery of drugs.
Judges in Indonesia have sentenced the group to one year in jail after a charge that could carry the death penalty was dropped.
During their June trial, defence lawyers argued their clients were unaware the food given to them in England contained cocaine.
The three-judge panel in Denpasar District Court handed down one-year prison terms for each defendant minus time served, making them eligible for release in seven months.
Separately, an Argentine woman was sentenced to seven years and a British man received a five-year sentence with a fine of £45,000 on charges of smuggling cocaine to Bali.
Eleonora Gracia, 46, was arrested in March at Bali's airport with 244 grams of cocaine.
Authorities alleged she handed over the cocaine to Elliot James Shaw, 50, during a police sting operation at a Bali hotel.
The sentences were considered lenient as Indonesia typically hands out severe punishments for drug smuggling, including the death penalty.
Indonesia's last executions of a citizen and three foreigners were carried out in July 2016.
The country has upheld a moratorium on execution since 2017.
British woman, Lindsay Sandiford, arrested in 2012 after being found with cocaine in her luggage, is now 69 and has been on death row in Indonesia for more than a decade.
President Prabowo Subianto has moved to repatriate several high-profile foreign inmates, all sentenced to death or life in prison for drug offences, back to their home countries since he took office in October.
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