Sandra Gregory
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Sandra Gregory (born 1965) is the author of Forget You Had a Daughter, an autobiographical book about how she was caught trying to smuggle heroin and temazepam out of Thailand.
[edit] Life
Sandra agreed to carry 89 grams of heroin and 600 capsules of temazepam for Robert Lock for his personal use from Bangkok to Tokyo. She agreed for an exchange of an amount of a thousand pounds to fund her trip back to the UK as after 2 years in Thailand she had run out of money and was desperate to go home.
On February 3, 1993 Gregory was arrested in the airport carrying 89 grams of heroin and 600 temazepam capsules on her. Gregory was sentenced to 22 years, spending four years, four months and four days in Bangkok prison Lard Yao, before she was first transferred to Holloway in 1997 and then to the high security H-wing at HMP Durham, the most secure women's prison in Britain[1] to serve an additional three and a half years before being granted clemency by the King of Thailand.
A few weeks after being released from prison, Sandra applied to Oxford University. She started studying Geography as a mature student at Harris Manchester College[1] in 2002. Prior to attending Oxford, she took a year out to tour schools and talk about her experiences in the hopes of dissuading others from making the same mistakes she did.
"I thought I would be cheeky and I applied to Oxford. I thought, 'When I don't get in here I can apply somewhere else,'" she said. "I didn't think I was going to - but lo and behold, I got in."[cite this quote]
"Everyone has preconceived ideas about Oxford and I thought, 'My CV looks blotchy, I've got a criminal record and I'm not part of mainstream society so I'll not get a place.' But I did and I found that the college I had applied to takes people on their individual merits. They accept a diversity of students who have something to offer."[cite this quote]
Sandra appeared in the 2006 British documentary series Banged Up Abroad as well as the 2008 American documentary series Locked Up Abroad where she tells about the experience.
