Bad idea, Mercedes

When Mercedes Corby started defamation action against Jody Power for the 'outrageous' claim that Mercedes had done and dealt drugs, I thought it sounded like a bad idea.

It was a bad idea.

MERCEDES CORBY, sister of the jailed drug trafficker Schapelle Corby, was so keen to consume the drug speed at a hen's party celebration at the Gold Coast races in 2002 that she went to the women's toilets, chopped up the powder on top of a toilet cistern and snorted it through a bank note, the Supreme Court heard yesterday.

According to Ms Power, a photograph of Mercedes when she was in her late teens showed her with marijuana in her hands and a "mull bowl" nearby, while her brother, Michael, held a "cone".

Another photo tendered to the court showed Ms Corby using a "penis pipe", a drug-taking implement named after its shape.

And in a photo taken in 1993 or '94, according to Ms Power, Ms Corby was smoking marijuana with a "mull pipe". Two weeks later she went to Japan.

From Toyama, Japan, Ms Corby had described the delights of the "mull" - tobacco mixed with marijuana - available in Japan and had said: "I only need three or four puffs and I am wasted." She also said mull originating from Hawaii was "the best", that she was getting stoned and enjoying herself, but to apologise to her brother Michael jnr that she could not send any of "the Es" (ecstasy tablets).

Ms Power told the court that after the party at the Gold Coast races, when she says Ms Corby had snorted speed, she and a number of young women had gone to a penthouse where a woman sold "party packs" comprising ecstasy, speed and cocaine. Mercedes had a line of cocaine.

Ms Power had moved to a flat at Keira, then to Byron Bay, where she had made regular purchases of marijuana for $70 to $80 a half-ounce from Michael Corby jnr, and sometimes Mercedes would help in the delivery.

Mercedes Corby had told her she had taken "small amounts" of marijuana to Bali before and had asked Ms Power whether she would be prepared to do it. Ms Power had said she would not.

Ms Corby had asked her to help water a marijuana crop being grown by Ms Corby's father, which Ms Power also refused.

Ms Power said that in October 2004 she had gone to Bali to celebrate Mercedes's 30th birthday.

She heard that Schapelle, who had travelled separately, had been arrested. And Mercedes had told her she had gone to the airport with 1 million rupiah to bribe Schapelle's way out but when she saw the amount of the drug realised a million was not enough.

The judgement to be handed down at the end of this promises to be quite hilarious, I think...

UPDATE: The jury bought it. Colour me surprised.