Drugs gran loses death penalty appeal cash fight

BRITISH grandmother Lindsay Sandiford has lost her appeal over the UK government’s refusal to fund her legal challenge against the death sentence imposed by an Indonesian court for drug smuggling.

Her lawyers tried to challenge a High Court ruling that the government was not legally obliged to pay for “an adequate lawyer” to represent her. But yesterday three senior judges dismissed the move in the Court of Appeal.

The Foreign Office refused to fund her case as a matter of government policy.

Sandiford, 56, from Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, was sentenced to death by firing squad by a Bali court for taking £1.6 million of cocaine on to the island.

In January, the High Court upheld the government’s stance of not providing legal funding for British nationals arrested abroad, even in exceptional circumstances.

After that decision, Sandiford received a private donation of over £2,500 that enabled her to be represented by an Indonesian lawyer at her Bali appeal.

Having lost that first case, she is in a race against time to raise money to take her case to Indonesia’s Supreme Court in Jakarta. She is said to need about £8,000 to fight on.