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Lindsay Sandiford, a grandmother who acted as a drug mule, is set to return home today after being spared execution. The 69-year-old, who has been in poor health, will be flying back to the UK on a £600 ticket, funded by the UK government. The former legal secretary was sentenced to death in 2013 for smuggling £1.6 million worth of cocaine into Indonesia. She has spent the last 13 years in one of the world's harshest prisons, awaiting her fate. A source close to the situation revealed to the Mirror : "Lindsay is extremely unwell. She is desperate to get home and to be with her family. More than a decade in one of the world's worst prisons has taken its toll on her and she wants nothing more than to get back to the UK." It is understood that Sandiford will leave her cell in Kerobokan jail this afternoon , alongside fellow Briton Shahab Shahabadi, 35, who was arrested in June 2014 and is serving a life sentence for drug offences. The pair will then make a 45-minute car journey to Denpasar International Airport, where they will be handed over to the UK Ambassador Dominic Jermey. Before boarding their flight, accompanied by British officials, they will face the media one final time. Sandiford received a death sentence in 2013 despite maintaining that a UK-based drug syndicate coerced her into transporting the drugs from Thailand. She has been held for 13 years in Bali's infamous Kerobokan prison, where unsanitary conditions, overcrowding and humidity make life extremely harsh. However, last month an arrangement was reached between Indonesia and the UK Government to facilitate her release, with authorities confirming she is "seriously ill". Indonesian sources suggest Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Home Secretary Yvette Cooper made a direct appeal to Indonesian officials for Sandiford's repatriation. Foreign Office representatives are believed to have been negotiating the arrangement for over 18 months, regularly travelling to visit her in detention. Pastor Christine Buckingham - who saw Sandiford at Kerobokan jail last week - told the Mirror: "She is in extremely ill health and she's very keen to get back and be with her family after these 13 years. She wants to get home and enjoy some creature comforts." When asked about her intentions upon arriving in the UK, Ms Buckingham said: "We're deeply grateful to the Indonesian Government and of course the British Government for working this out together. We look forward to her getting home now. She's very unwell. The most important thing is that she gets home, we need her to be checked medically and then the plan is that she says she will spend as much time as she can with her family." Sandiford moved to India in 2012 after being evicted from her rented property in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire. Upon her arrival in Bali from Bangkok, Thailand, in May 2012, she was apprehended with a stash of cocaine in her suitcase. Sandiford insisted that she had been coerced into transporting the Class A drugs by a criminal gang who had threatened her family. However, when faced with the prospect of a death sentence for drug trafficking, the grandmother dramatically altered her account. She confessed to authorities that she had been enlisted to transport the drugs by a British antiques dealer. Sandiford even consented to participate in a police sting operation to apprehend her co-accused. Her legal representatives argued that she had been forced into carrying the drugs and was grappling with mental health issues. Despite their appeals, she was found guilty - even though the prosecution had sought a 15-year prison term instead of the death penalty. Last year, the Mirror disclosed that Sandiford was fervently hoping for her release after Indonesia eased their notoriously stringent laws on drug trafficking. No executions have been carried out in Indonesia since 2016. It was also revealed that while incarcerated in the dreadful Kerobokan prison, she earned the moniker "Grandmother" whilst teaching others to knit. Some sources claimed she enjoyed special privileges, including medium-rare steak dinners, while others painted her as "foul-mouthed, antagonistic". She was subjected to a life of pain after developing arthritis in the confines of a cramped 16ft-by-16ft cell she shares with four other female prisoners.
