opinion

We're thinking about Sara Connor's two sons today.

Handcuffs. A bright orange jumpsuit. A glaring white sign around her neck, with the words ‘Sara Connor’. An expression they’ve never seen before. ‘What is Mum doing?’

Last August, Connor’s sons, aged nine and 11, watched television screens and internet videos and newspaper headlines for pictures of their mother recreating a crime scene on a Bali beach.

The Byron Bay mum and her British boyfriend David Taylor were photographed as they embraced and acted out the series of events that left Balinese police officer Wayan Sudarsa dead a fortnight before. The couple had been searching for Connor’s stolen handbag. There was an altercation and Sudarsa suffered 42 wounds to his body, including his head and neck. He was found face-down on the Kuta beach the following morning.

Today, Connor’s sons are adjusting to a new reality. For the first time since their mum was arrested seven months ago, charged with group assault leading to death, they’ve received something certain: A guilty verdict and a sentence of four years behind bars in a Balinese prison.

Connor’s already served seven months. She will be released in three years and five months if she doesn’t choose to appeal.

Three years and five months is a long time for kids aged nine and 11.

By the time their mother is out, both boys will be in high school. Their personalities will be a little more grown-up, maybe more guarded, certainly more complex.

They’ll have different posters on their bedroom walls. They’ll be listening to different music. One might be pestering his dad to let him grow his hair long, the other might be starting his first part-time job.

The two boys have’t been to visit their mum since she’s been in prison. “I don’t think it’s a good idea to see your mother behind bars,” Connor told Fairfax back in January. That was when she still thought a not-guilty verdict was possible.

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That might change now. The two boys might travel to Bali’s Kerobokan prison, where their mum is sharing a cell with 10 other women. They might talk about their school, and her safety. They might discuss their Byron Bay home, the pasta-making business she’s left behind. They might tell her their dad is too strict or really busy or how he took them to Currumbin Sanctuary last weekend and it was more fun than they expected.

These visits would feel like lifelines to the 46-year-old mother. They would be transfusions of love and light and hope in between the days of nothingness.

Loren O’Keeffe on No Filter. Post continues below.

There is no guessing how these visits might feel for the boys.

Talking to your mum is hard enough when you’re a teenager. Talking to your mum when you’re trying to understand what has happened, and how nine months ago she was calling you to breakfast and now she’s a prisoner… Imagine the intensity, the confusion, of those feelings?

Connor has maintained her innocence since the beginning. She didn’t see what happened, she told the court. She was trying to find her handbag. When she had been involved, she’d only been trying to separate the victim and her boyfriend, she told authorities. When she destroyed the police officer’s identification cards, she was only doing it to prevent identity fraud, she protested. She did not burn their bloodied clothes out of guilt. She doesn’t know what happened, she’s said over and over again.

Certainly, the response from the Byron Bay community has been one of support. Connor’s ex-husband says she is “definitely innocent“, that “she was in the wrong place at the wrong time”. A booklet of 78 testimonials to Connor’s character was presented to the court, testimonials from her family, friends, people who’ve worked with her, lived with her. In September last year, the two boys sent their mum a video, “please come home soon“.

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The support must help the boys. It must make the burden a bit lighter. Showing them their mother is who they think she is. Look how many people are behind her? She’s the same as she was before this horrible, horrible mix up.

But all the support in the world doesn’t bring her back to them sooner. It doesn’t keep her from missing all the “firsts” that will happen between now and her release.

The years between 11 and 15, or nine and 13, are filled with firsts.

A first bad teacher.

The first whisper of puberty.

A first love interest.

A first major win on the sporting field.

A first idea of what you’re going to do with your life, and who you’re going to become.

A first ‘grown-up’ fight with your parents.

A first real act of rebellion.

A first look into the future as an adult, not a boy.

Of all the people involved in this saga: The victim, Wayan Sudarsa, and his widow, Ketut Arsini. The 46-year-old Connor. The 34-year-old Taylor, who’s been sentenced to six years in prison. Connor’s ex-husband, Anthony, who is now having conversations with his sons that, no, their mother won’t be coming home soon.

Of all the people who have lost in this situation, those two boys have lost something immeasurable.

They have lost their mother and her innocence and her role in their teenage-hood. Her absence, and the reasons for it, is a desperate reality for two young boys who could never have seen this coming.

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