On her first night in a Colombian jail, 22-year-old South Australian and convicted drug smuggler Cassandra Sainsbury suffered a shocking attack.“On the first night, you are basically put into one cell-type shed room with inmates who had been there for a while,” she told NewsWire in a wide-ranging interview this week.
“And she had a bit of a gang, this girl, and they were stealing people’s stuff who had just come in and it was really frustrating because I didn’t really have anything anyway to be stolen. And I was violated by a girl.”
It was an appalling beginning to what would be nearly three years scuffling for survival in Colombia’s notorious El Buen Pastor in Bogota.
Sainsbury was captured trafficking 5.8kg of cocaine at Bogota international airport on a flight bound for Australia in 2017.
She became a media sensation, earning the moniker “Cocaine Cassie”, and the now 29-year-old has penned a memoir detailing her side of a terrible story.
“I stayed on the good side of the guards,” she said when asked how she made it through prison life day-by-day.
“I was a little bit misunderstood in that sense with my inmates because I never argued with the guards.
“I never caused any problems and you know if they did a search and they found prohibited items like phones and things, it would be the end of the world and I would kind of just go ‘well like what do you expect, we’re not supposed to have them. It’s their job’.”
But the spectre of violence shadowed everything, she said.
In one instance, Sainsbury said she kicked and screamed to fight off a male guard who tried to sexually assault her.
“I was screaming,” she said.
“Then the other guard who was basically watching the door, she didn’t do anything until eventually she realised he wasn’t going to get anywhere.”
One of the head guards, a brutal lieutenant, “enjoyed beating women”, she said.
“By this time, he had already beaten me twice. Fists, kicking,” Sainsbury said.
“There was a lot of violence from this lieutenant.”
“I tried to report him when I was in there and the paperwork got lost.”
Life was hard in a host of other ways. The food was “disgusting”, she said, and she grew sick from the lack of nutrition.
“We actually got a lot of rotten and mouldy food to the point the kitchen was shut down many times,” Sainsbury said.
“It would have worms in it, bugs in it. There would be hair. The other inmates who served the food, they would use their hands to serve it.
“I struggled a lot with the food to the point I got very sick.
“There was a store inside the prison and they sold crackers and things like that which would get you through enough to survive and you would pick and choose what you would eat from the food we were given.
“It was only very small portions as well. It was to give you energy for what you needed and that was it.”
Sainsbury said it was unlikely she would ever receive justice for the abuses perpetrated against her at El Buen Pastor, which is run by Colombian prison agency INPEC.
“When I first came out in parole, it was something that I did want to look into and actually try and get somewhere with it. I did start doing some work with a lawyers’ firm (Colombian lawyer),” she said.
“We went into INPEC, which is who runs the prison system.
“And they basically just said, ‘Inmates don’t have any rights. There are no rights. You are a nobody. You go in there, no freedom’.
“(But) you still have basic dignity as a human in prison.
“To have simple little things that will protect you and keep you safe. Although you’ve done the crime, it doesn’t mean you have to go through those things.
“It just never went any further. There is so much corruption in there. They kind of protect their own.”
Sainsbury was sentenced to six years in jail and then released in 2020 after serving two years, 11 months and 21 days.
She then spent 27 months on parole in Colombia.
Drug traffickers and rich westerners rolling up dollar notes to snort cocaine from Sydney to London are responsible for the squall of violence ripping through Mexico and Latin America.
Judges, politicians, journalists and tens of thousands of innocent people are murdered year-in, year-out because of the drug trade, and Sainsbury said she felt “self-disgust” for her role in propelling this violence.
To help make amends, she said the proceeds from the book would go to three charities: Life Without Barriers, MumKind and Kickstart for Kids.
“This book, the sales are going to charity,” she said.
“One of them is Life Without Barriers, which has a really good rehabilitation program.
“I’m constantly trying to give back where I can.”
Her story is about redemption and second chances, she said.
“The book for me was about giving answers and explanations,” she said.
“Finally having a chance to speak up and I really hope that the book sheds light on the complex realities of what crime is and what prison life is actually about and what you can go through.
“I hope that anyone that reads it can find out how easy it can be to be manipulated and go down a very destructive path.
“Encouraging others hopefully to make better choices and of all things to see humanity in those who have made mistakes.”
Sainsbury now lives in Adelaide with her Colombian partner Tatiana, whom she calls her “anchor through all of this”.
“I was portrayed to be such a nasty, horrible person and I just wanted to give people an insight into how it actually unfolded and how I ended up there,” she said.
“Like I’m sorry, but it wasn’t intentional in any moment.”
Ms Sainsbury said she had “no relationship” with her mother, but she had reconciled with her sister.
“Her and my nephews, they are basically my family now,” she said.
“That’s who I spend all my time with.”
Her memoir is Cocaine Cassie: Setting the Record Straight, released by New Holland Publishers.
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