Schapelle's father says no drugs in boogie board bag

CANBERRA - When the father of accused drug smuggler Schapelle Corby packed his daughter's boogie board bag as she left for Bali, there was no sign of marijuana.

In fact, Michael Corby said his daughter had not touched illegal substances since her school days and was actually opposed to drugs.

He said the night before Schapelle left her Gold Coast home for a holiday to Bali to celebrate her sister Mercedes' 30th birthday, he repaired his daughter's boogie board, packed it in its bag and put it in the car for the trip to the airport.

"I fixed the board, there was a little strip missing off the boogie board thing, there was just a little plastic strip, so we stuck that on, stuck it in the bag," Michael Corby told ABC's 7.30 Report.

"I put it in the car, she put her bag in the car, kissed goodbye, (said) 'Have a good time'.

"Her mother took her to the airport at 4.30 in the morning, got all the photos there, the smiling face, going goodbye.

"Brisbane to Sydney. Sydney to Bali. She opens her bag for them there, they didn't ask her to, and all that marijuana stuff is in the bag."

The 27-year-old stands accused of smuggling more than 4kg of marijuana into Bali airport in her unlocked boogie board bag last October.

She begged three Indonesian judges today not to convict her of drug smuggling, saying her only crime had been failing to lock her bag.

Her father has no doubt she is innocent.

"She had nothing to do with bloody drugs," he said.

"Oh, she might have had a puff when she was in bloody grade 10 or something, around the back of the schoolyard like kids do, I don't know.

"She had nothing to do with it since, or any time as far as I know.

"She's against it, anti-drugs.

"Anyway, I'd seen the bloody bag there, there was nothing in it.

"She's not guilty, no way."

Mr Corby said he was telling the truth and had no reason to lie.

"I'm telling you what I feel, what I saw and what I know," he said.

"She didn't have the bloody things.

"They turned up over there somewhere between Brisbane airport and Bali, somewhere I couldn't tell you where.

"But they're there and she's in all the trouble cause they're bloody there and she didn't have them when she left home."

Mr Corby, who has prostate cancer, said he felt helpless as his daughter fought to clear her name.

"I don't know the system, it's just foreign to me," he said.

"I'm just helpless and there's nothing I can do."

He spoke of how his youngest daughter drove from her home in Tugun, on the Gold Coast, to Gladstone, north of Brisbane, to collect him so he could undergo cancer treatment at Tweed Heads, on the NSW-Queensland border.

"It (the cancer) spread to my bones and I (was) living up in Gladstone and getting treatment there. It was knocking me around pretty bad," he said.

"Schapelle turns up and says: 'Dad, you're coming down to Tugun, I'll look after you'.

"I said: 'No you're not, I'm quite okay thanks. This will pass'."

But he said his daughter was insistent and he returned to the Gold Coast with her.

Mr Corby said he was asleep in the garage of his daughter's home on October 8 last year when he learned she had been arrested in Bali.

"The garage door clicked up. I thought someone was trying to knock the joint off or something, and it was her mother," he said.

"'Michael, Michael, your daughter has been arrested at the airport in Bali for all this marijuana'.

"I said: 'What are talking about?'. Then she explained it to me."

He said he was spun out but eventually he went back to sleep and when he awoke he put it down to a bad dream.

"'Geez, that was a crazy nightmare. What a dream. Schapelle's been knocked off over there with all this marijuana in her bag'," he said.

"And then the phone rang ... it was a TV station ... and he told me.

"(And I realised) 'Oh my God, this wasn't a dream'."

But Mr Corby said he knew it was a crazy mistake and was confident it would be cleared up.

"You hope for the best but we just have to wait and see what happens for real," Mr Corby said.

"I just hope they come back with the right verdict, which is innocent."

Mr Corby said his daughter found some solace in the Christian church at her Bali jail.

"That gives her a bit of quiet time by herself when she can't talk to anybody else," he said.

"I won't talk about the case. I made that mistake a couple of times until I was put straight, quick smart, by her.

"'Don't talk to me about it in here dad; we talk about other things.

"'Anything else, not that'."

- AAP