Schapelle Corby’s mother, Rosleigh Rose, has expressed concern over how her daughter will adjust to life back in Australia — more than a decade since her arrest.
“When she gets here and settles in, we’ll just have to make sure we get her out and about,” she told the Courier Mail on Thursday.
“We’ll be trying to get her back into the swing of things so she feels confident.”
She said the convicted drug smuggler has been holed up in her Bali home for the past few weeks due to intense media scrutiny.
According to Rose, her daughter’s homecoming will be bittersweet as she will be forced to leave behind her Sumatran boyfriend Ben Panangian, whom she met in prison in 2006.
“She’s got mixed emotions [about leaving Panangian], but it’s out of her hands. I don’t bring it up with her because it’s not a nice subject,” she told the publication.
Corby will likely be banned from reentering Bali and Panangian may struggle to obtain a visa for Australia due to drug convictions.
WATCH: Schapelle Corby’s sister offers support in the lead-up to her deportation. Post continues…
Rose also reheated claims the Australian Federal Police and government withheld proof of her daughter’s innocence.
She said former AFP commissioner Mick Keelty, ex-Foreign Minister Alexander Downer and former Customs Minister Chris Ellison were complicit in covering up her innocence.
“Why don’t you ask Mick Keelty and Downer and Ellison why they kept vital information about the boogie board bag and the airport?” Ms Rose asked reporters on Thursday.
“They know Schapelle was innocent.”
Corby’s claimed in 2005 that she’d been unknowingly used as a smuggler by organised interstate drug smugglers.
Corby, who will be deported to Australia after her parole expires on May 27, could stand to make hundred of thousands of dollars within weeks of her return to home soil.
According to celebrity publicist Max Markson, the convicted drug smuggler will likely be inundated with paid offers among them, reality TV show appearances and invitations to attend events such as The Melbourne Cup.
“There’s probably a few hundred grand generated for her the first few weeks she’s back, and there’ll be more (money) later on too,” Mr Markson recently told 3AW.
“There’ll be some companies that don’t want to have a bar of her, and there’ll be others that are interested.”
He added: “She’ll be controversial.”
Corby has always maintained her innocence.
Mr Markson explained that Corby has created a “brand” for herself after nine years in Bali’s Kerobokan Prison.
“Once you do something that’s in the public domain and make a profile for yourself, you’ve got it for the rest of your life,” he said.
“Schapelle Corby’s name has been famous for 12 or 13 years, she’s a brand, there’s no doubt about it.”
“Crime pays, and it can keep paying later on.”
Corby, who continues to maintain her innocence, was sentenced to 20 years in prison in 2005 after she was arrested the previous year in Bali with 4.1kg of cannabis stashed inside a bodyboard bag.
She has been living in Bali since she was granted parole in 2014.
