Kerre Woodham: Stakes high in Corby saga

You can't help but feel sympathy for Schapelle Corby, the 27-year-old Australian woman at the centre of a drugs trial in Bali.

Surely she cannot have been so stupid as to try to smuggle 4kg of marijuana into Bali, where it would sell for less than it does on the streets of Australia.

If she was indeed that stupid, she needs help, not jail time. Her defence claims she was the unwitting victim of a domestic drug-smuggling operation gone wrong, but from the little I know of drug rings, I would have thought they were more sophisticated than to bung dope with a wholesale value of more than $36,000 into some random body-board bag and just hope for the best.

It's a fascinating story but for Schapelle, the stakes are high. Drug trafficking can be punishable by death by firing squad in Indonesia, and even if Schapelle escapes a bullet, a life sentence in a Balinese jail is pretty much a death penalty unless you have a steady stream of cash with which you can pay for the food and medicine that will give you a fighting chance of survival.

The tricky thing about the Balinese court is that its justice system is inherited from the Dutch and innocence has to be proven to the satisfaction of the judges. You're not innocent until proven guilty as in our system.

It's no good depending on the evidence to protect Schapelle either. The weight of the baggage might have indicated whether the dope was planted in transit, but the bags weren't weighed individually in Brisbane and not at all in Bali.

There might have been fingerprints on the plastic bag but so many customs officers, police and officials handled it, it's all but useless.

CCTV in the baggage areas might have shown whether there was any interference with Schapelle's luggage, but the tapes were wiped in Brisbane and "unavailable" (whatever that means) in Bali.

It's unlikely there's going to be a CSI-type rescue for Schapelle. The Indonesian media have made up their minds - Schapelle is referred to in headlines as Ratu Marijuana or Marijuana Queen. But the Aussie media are championing her cause. She's an Australian everywoman - attractive in a girl-next-door way, a woman much loved by her family, who are there supporting her through her ordeal.

It's interesting too that Schapelle has become a girl. In any culture a 27-year-old is a woman, but as if to emphasise the David and Goliath struggle going on, Schapelle has become an "Aussie girl". Websites have been set up to support her and Australian politicians are being lobbied to bring Schapelle home.

It's a classic horror story of what can happen when good travel goes bad and a story that parents will undoubtedly use to scare the bejesus out of their offspring as they head off on their OE.

I really don't believe that she'll get the death penalty. If Indonesian cleric Abu Bakr Bashir gets just 30 months for his complicity in the deaths of 202 people in the Bali bombings, then surely Schapelle should be home soon. But that depends on whether the court system in Bali is fair and just, and the jury's out on that one.