Renae Lawrence - Background

Background

Lawrence, from Newcastle in New South Wales, came from a broken home and for most of her teen and early adulthood years she lived with her same sex partner and mother of three children, who was ten years older than Lawrence. After the relationship with her partner ended, Lawrence moved back in with her mother and stepfather. Her father described Lawrence, who was aged 27–years at the time of her arrest, as:

"She is not 27 at heart. She's probably 15. She's just really gullible, naive and bloody stupid. She's not a bad kid. She's just got in with the wrong mob..... It surprises me that she would get involved in this but she was pretty desperate. She was upset when the car blew up. She was crying on the phone to her aunty wanting money. She was doing it tough. I don't think she's ever had a lot of money."

Initially employed with a smash repair company, Lawrence later gained employment at Eurest, a catering company, where she met Martin Stephens, Matthew Norman, and her supervisor, Andrew Chan. All four would later be convicted of drug trafficking as fellow members of the Bali Nine.

In an earlier unrelated incident, Lawrence and Norman were arrested on 26 March 2005, travelling along the Pacific Highway in a stolen vehicle. It was reported that police were required to use road spikes to intercept the vehicle. Both were due to appear on 26 April 2005 in the Gosford Magistrates Court to face car theft and traffic related charges. However, due to their arrest in Indonesia nine days earlier, both Lawrence and Norman failed to appear.