Pregnant ‘drugs mule’ Bella Culley is set to walk free from Georgian prison and return to Britain as early as today following a dramatic last minute reprieve.
The 19-year-old was due to be sentenced to two years in jail, but it was cut at the 11th hour due to her age, good behaviour and the fact she is expecting a child.
Culley’s mother, Lyanne Kennedy, 44, broke into tears of joy outside Tbilisi City Court, telling reporters: ‘I am so happy – so happy. I know I don’t look like it, but I am so happy.
‘We will need to get her passport and then we leave. Either today or tomorrow.’
Lyanne, a charity worker, and Culley’s father, Niel Culley, 49, had been forced to pay a staggering £140,000 fine to reduce the sentence last week.
The plea deal should still have seen the teenager serve two years in jail with six months reduced for time already served after she was found entering the country with £200,000 worth of cannabis in May.
But arriving at court in the Black Sea nation’s capital this morning, Malkhaz Salakaia, defending, said there had been a last minute reprieve.
‘She is being released, she walks free,’ he said. ‘She doesn’t know yet.
‘I got the information literally 15 minutes ago and informed her mum, who has just about stopped crying.’
Bella Culley is set to walk free from prison in a dramatic U-Turn. She was initially meant to be sentenced to two years in prison
Culley’s mother, Lyanne Kennedy seen arriving in court today. She and Culley’s father had been forced to pay a £140,000 fine to reduce her sentence
Prosecutor Vakhtang Tsalugelashvili said: ‘It was our initiative – we took into consideration her age, her condition and her good behaviour, and that she fully cooperated.’
Culley is due to give birth before Christmas after falling pregnant while travelling South East Asia with a man she said was not involved in drug smuggling.
The teenager did not even know Georgia was a country when she was arrested, touching down in the capital, Tbilisi, in May.
She has insisted that a British gang threatened to kill her family if she didn’t do as they told her before being found with £200,000 worth of cannabis in her luggage.
Culley claims she was forced to peddle the drugs from Thailand to Georgia, claiming she was burned with a hot iron and shown a beheading video by a Thai gang.
She then claims she flew to Tbilisi – thinking that was the name of a country – not knowing she had 14kg of illegal cargo hidden in her bags.
It follows a huge surge in backpackers being targeted and groomed by British gangs who have flocked to Thailand.
The country recently legalised cannabis, meaning there is a massive illicit trade in smuggling it to Britain for huge mark ups.
After the National Crime Agency shut down a scheme to post it to Britain, they have reverted to grooming drug mules.
