The heartbroken father of a woman who could be shot after being caught up in an international drug bust says he is convinced she is innocent.

Rachel Dougall faces death by firing squad after she was arrested in Bali.

She could be executed if she is convicted of smuggling £1.6m of cocaine into the paradise island.

The 38-year-old, who owns a flat in Eastern Terrace, Kemp Town, Brighton, has been arrested alongside her partner, Julian Ponder.

Yesterday (May 30) her father, Barry Dougall, from Haywards Heath, urged the Indonesian authorities to release her.

He said: “Let my daughter come home. I am heartbroken and shocked. I have got a granddaughter who I have never met.

“I am on autopilot, stuck in a flat miles from my daughter.

“I can’t imagine what she is going through.

“I can’t see Rachel doing things like that. I think she is innocent. It is terrifying.”

Firing squad

He said he feared his daughter would not get a fair trial, describing death by firing squad as “barbaric”.

He added: “Although I don’t know about Bali I have heard about similar cases and I am worried she won’t get a defence – that the case is already cut and dried.”

He said he had lost touch with Miss Dougall when she was in her teens but added he thought she had attended Cardinal Newman School in Hove.

Miss Dougall and Mr Ponder, who have a six-year-old daughter, Kitty, were arrested after a police sting.

Fellow Brit, mother-of-two Lindsay Sandiford, 55, from Gloucestershire, is accused of taking 11lb of cocaine into Bali in her luggage on a flight from Bangkok.

She is said to have been carrying the drugs for Miss Dougall and Mr Ponder, who were arrested six days ago.

Police claim they found a huge cocaine stash in Mr Ponder’s 4x4 vehicle and that more drugs were found in the couple’s Balinese mountain home, which they shared with their daughter Kitty, currently being cared for on the island by their gardener and maid.

Miss Dougall’s mother, Stella Woodley, 75, lives in a flat in a block off Withdean Rise, near London Road, Brighton.

She previously lived with Mr Dougall in College Place, Kemp Town.

Yesterday family and friends were gathered at the flat. A young blonde woman answered the door to The Argus but declined to speak.

'It's a fit-up claim couple'

Both Rachel Dougall and Julian Ponder say they are innocent.

Miss Dougall is said to have shouted, “It’s a fit-up, get us a decent lawyer”, while being led away by police.

Meanwhile Mr Ponder is said to have yelled: “We need a good international lawyer. it’s a fit-up.”

Friends of the couple in Bali said the allegations against them were initially dismissed as a joke.

Some told the Daily Telegraph that Miss Dougall was a “party girl” who had been innocently caught up in a “bigger game”.

One friend said: “I believe that she has been caught up in this somehow.

“I think she has been coerced and wrapped up in a bigger game than she really understood.”

Another person said: “She always had these fabulous designer clothes on. You’d see her dancing on the tables.

“She was the life of the party.”