Australian mother arrested alongside her husband after police raids at the Pink Palace spa in Bali was injured during the 2002 terrorist bombings
An Australian mother who was arrested with her husband during police raids on Bali’s Pink Palace spa survived the horror terrorist bombings in 2002.
Lynley Le Grand, 44, and her husband Michael Jerome Le Grand, 50, were arrested earlier this week for allegedly operating a spa that offered prostitution services.
The couple, originally from Victoria, were arrested along with eight others after police raided their Pink Palace spa in Bali’s popular Kuta district.
On Friday, they were paraded before the media at Bali Police headquarters in Denpasar, wearing orange prison shirts and face masks.
The couple have raised several children in Bali and own several businesses, including the popular café The Corner in Seminyak.
Prostitution is illegal in Indonesia and investigators claim a 17-year-old massage therapist worked at the Pink Palace Spa.
They are investigating whether the owners could be prosecuted under Indonesian child protection laws. If found guilty, the Australian couple faces up to 12 years in prison.
It has now emerged that Ms Le Grand was seriously injured in the horrific 2002 Bali bombings, a series of terrorist attacks that killed 202 people, including 88 Australians.
Lynley Le Grand, 44, and her husband Michael Jerome Le Grand, 50, were arrested earlier this week for allegedly operating a spa offering prostitution services in Kuta, Bali.
Ms Le Grand (pictured) told the ABC she had been on the dance floor of Paddy’s Bar in Kuta when a suicide bomber detonated a backpack bomb during the 2002 Bali bombings
On the twentieth anniversary of the Bali bombings in 2022, she told the ABC she had been on the dance floor of Paddy’s Bar in Kuta when a suicide bomber detonated a backpack bomb.
‘We were literally blown in different directions. So I was about five feet away from where I stood, where I ended up,” she said.
‘I ended up with 30 percent burns, mainly the upper part of my body on my back.’
Ms Le Grand, then 22, was evacuated to Melbourne’s Alfred Hospital.
‘At that stage our bodies had become far too large due to fluid and our organs had shut down. So it was a matter of just patching up what they could, getting skin out of areas where they could and then tackling the recovery process after that,” she revealed.
Mrs. Le Grand has made Bali her permanent residence and raised her children there.
Ms Le Grand was seriously injured in the horrific 2002 Bali bombings, a series of terrorist attacks that killed 202 people, including 88 Australians (pictured of the aftermath in Kuta).
Sarnanitha Olarenshaw (pictured), who shares a daughter with former Essendon Premier star Ricky Olarenshaw, was arrested in a police raid on a separate massage parlor last month
“Families have dealt with losing someone for 20 years and we’ve had to deal with building a life. We were young, we were 22 and that’s what I wanted my kids to always know,” she told the publication.
The couple’s arrests come after the influencer ex-wife of legendary footy star Ricky Olarenshaw was arrested in Bali last month over her alleged involvement in a spa, accused of doubling as an illegal brothel.
Sarnanitha Olarenshaw, who shares a daughter with the former Essendon premier, was arrested in a police raid on the Flame Spa massage parlor in Seminyak in late September.
Two receptionists, a manager and the spa director were also arrested.
Sarnanitha claims her estranged husband was part owner of the spa, but there is no evidence of any wrongdoing on behalf of Mr Olarenshaw.