Foreign Office will visit Lindsay Sandiford in prison - if she accepts consular assistance

As execution looms for Redcar gran Lindsay Sandiford, the Foreign Office has said officers would visit her in prison if she wants their support.

Lindsay Sandiford is due to be executed by firing squad in the next few weeks for smuggling drugs into Bali.

She has previously said the UK Foreign Office was doing little to help her, however a spokeswoman for the office today maintained that they “stand ready” to offer her assistance.

The spokeswoman said Sandiford had regular contact with the Foreign Office’s consular officials in Bali until September last year at which point she declined to accept any further support.

The spokeswoman said the office is “closely following the case”.

“We stand ready to offer her consular assistance and we would, of course, visit her in prison if she changed her mind,” she added.

Sandiford, originally from Redcar, was sentenced to death in January 2013 after she was found with the cocaine as she arrived in Bali on a flight from Bangkok, Thailand, in May 2012.

The grandmother and mum-of-two claimed she was forced to transport the drugs to protect her children, whose safety was at stake.

All her appeals have so far been denied and she has no legal representation after the British Government refused to fund a lawyer for her.

The Foreign Office has said it opposes the death penalty and has “repeatedly made representations to the Indonesian government” about the matter and said it will continue to do so.

The spokeswoman said: “We fully support the EU statement setting out our principled opposition to the use of the death penalty in all circumstances.

"We believe it undermines human dignity, there is no conclusive evidence of its deterrent value, and any miscarriage of justice leading to its imposition is irreversible and irreparable.

“We are closely following the developments in Indonesia.

"We have repeatedly made representations to the Indonesian government on this matter and we will continue to do so.

"Most recently on 4 February by the Foreign Secretary while he was in Jakarta.”