Sandra Gregory (born 1965) is a British teacher who was imprisoned for four years in Thailand after being caught trying to smuggle heroin out of Bangkok's Don Muang Airport.
Gregory had spent two years travelling around Thailand and living in Bangkok, sometimes working as an English language teacher.
[1] Suffering a bout of dengue fever, Gregory was unable to work; her money was running out and she was desperate to return to the UK.
Gregory was the only person carrying illegal items; the drugs hidden inside her body were detected.
Gregory was held at the Lard Yao Women's section within Bangkok's Klong Prem Central Prison, notorious for its brutality, drug abuse, squalid conditions and severe overcrowding.
She claimed to be “happy” in Lard Yao, as she could see the blue sky and the green trees in the prison garden.
[6] 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.
"[7] Gregory said in 2004 that the scenes in the novel Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason and its film adaptation involving the Thai prison probably received inspiration from her incident since author Helen Fielding knew the next door neighbours of her parents and presumably would have talked to them.