The mother at the centre of £1.6million Bali cocaine-smuggling trial... as her co-conspirator Lindsay Sandiford languishes on death row..

The British mother involved in a £1.6million cocaine smuggling plot is back home after spending a year behind bars in a Bali jail.

While her co-conspirator, grandmother Lindsay Sandiford, has been left languishing on death row, Rachel Dougall has been reunited with her daughter, Kitty, 7, who has no idea why she vanished for so long.

Dougall has been freed after serving a year in the squalid Kerobokan Prison. 

Speaking yesterday as she left her mother’s flat in Brighton for a break with Kitty, she said her daughter’s welfare was her priority.

She was later seen drinking beers with friends on a yacht on Brighton Marina. 

She said: ‘I want to spend a week or so with my daughter before I think about saying anything about what happened to me in Bali.

‘Naturally I want to keep Kitty out of this. She is the most important person to me.

In contrast to the welcome home balloons that greeted Dougall, Sandiford is still in Kerobokan while her lawyers work on the final appeals against her death penalty.

She was one of four Britons arrested last May over a 10.6lb stash of cocaine brought from Bangkok.

All four initially faced possible death sentences for trafficking. But while Sandiford, 56, who gave evidence against her co-conspirators after being arrested at Bali airport was put on death row, Dougall got just one year for failing to report a crime.

Her partner Julian Ponder, 44 – the syndicate’s alleged ringleader – got six years for possession of cocaine found in the luxury villa he shared with Dougall and their daughter Kitty, while Paul Beales, 41, was sentenced to four years for possession.

Dougall’s release came as a former fellow inmate claimed that Ponder arranged huge bribes to get himself, Dougall, Beales and Indian national Nanda Gopal off trafficking charges. 

The former inmate claims it was confirmed to him in a conversation in Kerobokan that sums averaging ‘around $350,000 (£231,000) each’ had been paid to have the trafficking charges against the four reduced.

No money was apparently paid on behalf of Sandiford, whose death sentence is being challenged in a final appeal before the Supreme Court in Jakarta.

Speaking to The Mail on Sunday on condition of anonymity, the former inmate offering to testify on Sandiford’s behalf said he had come forward because he felt she had been treated unjustly.

In an unusual step, prosecutors – who asked for a 15-year jail term for Sandiford at her trial – have also appealed against the death penalty.

A decision on the appeal is expected in the next two months.