Schapelle Corby: My quest for justice

In the final countdown to freedom, Schapelle Corby quietly confided her secret wish to family and friends. After more than nine years in Bali’s bleak Kerobokan prison, her greatest hope is to come home and clear her name of a crime she has always denied committing.

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And with all the paperwork for Schapelle’s parole finally in place, the Corby clan are cautiously optimistic that she could walk free within weeks – or even days.

‘If everything goes right, it could go ahead very soon,’ Mercedes tells New Idea in an exclusive interview. ‘Schapelle knows, and she feels it, but she doesn’t get her hopes up. She can’t.”

Schappelle Corby stands behind the bars in the holding cell at Denpasar District Court. Source: Getty

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But Channel Nine’s upcoming feature-length film Schapelle has cast a huge cloud over the former beauty student’s impending release.

Her family, which has not been consulted on the making of the movie, fears it will repeat fiercely disputed claims that much-loved father Mick was involved in the drug trade.

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Schapelle is believed to be based, at least in part, on journalist Eamonn Duff’s controversial book Sins of the Father, which is the subject of legal proceedings by the Corbys.

‘The film-makers and the Nine Network have not contacted us at all to check any facts,’ says an indignant Mercedes, 39. ‘We know nothing about the movie other than that it is apparently based on a book that we are taking defamation action against.’

Read the full interview in New Idea – out now.

Read the full interview in New Idea – out now.