PREGNANT drugs mule Bella Culley’s bid to walk free from jail in Georgia was dashed today as her family failed to raise cash for a £215,000 plea bargain deal.
Bella, 19, has pleaded guilty to importing a huge stash of cannabis from Thailand to the former Soviet state and struck a deal to walk free with prosecutors.
Bella May Culley has been in a jail cell in Georgia since her arrest in May
ReutersBella’s mum Lyanne Kennedy, right, must now raise an eyewatering £215,000 in three weeks to free her daughter[/caption]
But her distraught family have been unable to raise the huge sum – amid fears that she may now give birth to her baby boy behind bars in a grim Georgian jail.
Judge Giorgi Gelashvili today gave the family three weeks to raise the plea bargain cash – or Bella faces jail time.
Bella’s charity worker mum Lyanne Kennedy, 44, and oil rig technician dad Niel Culley, 49, have been desperately attempting to borrow cash but admitted they had fallen short.
And they now have until October 28 to raise the full amount before the judge imposes a jail term on November 2.
Tearful Lyanne said outside the court in Georgian capital Tbilisi today: “We thought this would be the day but sadly not.
“She is a bit anxious because she expected to go free today, but sadly it couldn’t happen.
“I am visiting her tomorrow. She is expecting her child by Christmas.”
Bella claimed she was tricked into trafficking 31lb of cannabis from Bangkok Airport in May after being burned with an iron and shown beheading videos by a Thai drugs gang.
The father of her child is believed to be a British man she met earlier on another leg of her far East backpacking trip.
Asked how they were securing the funds, Lyanne added: “You need to speak to her dad. All my money has gone on visiting, six times now.”
Bella, from Billingham, Teesside, now faces a year in jail if her parents cannot find the cash – and giving birth behind bars in Tbilisi’s tough Women’s Penitentiary No 5.
She has told the court she had no idea where she was going when she flew to Tbilisi with packets of weed stashed in her hold luggage.
Sources close to the case revealed outside court that Amazon and Netflix had approached the family seeking a deal to tell Bella’s story in a TV docu-drama.
But the sums they were offering were said to have been “nowhere near” to meet the sum set by Georgian prosecutors, who are demanding the street value of the smuggled dope.
Bella was caught on CCTV going through passport control
Bella fell pregnant during her Thailand trip after a fling with an unidentified British lad
Bella – who blew a kiss to her mother and grandma before she was taken back to prison – is next due in court on October 28.
The Brit previously claimed she had no idea where Georgia was and tried to raise the alarm when she boarded a flight from Bangkok.
Her lawyer, Malkhaz Salakaia said at an earlier hearing: “There was no malicious intent on Bella’s part – she was pressured and forced and there is irrefutable evidence of that.
“Her testimony contains even the names and last names of the individuals who forced her to transport it, she was threatened, as well as her family, including her mother who is present today.
“I want to underline that she didn’t hand in the baggage – all she knows is that there is this luggage and she will be met by certain individuals once she arrives.
“The bag wasn’t even locked, and it went through three countries and two continents, while Bella to this day is unaware whether Tbilisi is a country or a city.
“Bella didn’t commit this crime and there are no grounds to doubt her testimony.”
Inside the dark world of Brit ‘drug mules’
A SLEW of drug mule arrests involving Brits have emerged in the last few months.
In April and May, two Brit women were arrested abroad for alleged drug smuggling.
Bella was the first after she allegedly tried to smuggle a suitcase of weed into Georgia.
Meanwhile, former air stewardess Charlotte May Lee was also caught allegedly trying to smuggle drugs worth £1.2million into Sri Lanka.
Her two suitcases were said to have been stuffed with 46kg of a synthetic cannabis strain known as kush — which is 25 times more potent than opioid fentanyl.
If found guilty, South Londoner Charlotte could face a 25-year sentence.
A young mum was detained in Germany for allegedly smuggling cannabis in her bags on a flight from Thailand – in yet another shocking case.
Glamorous Cameron Bradford, 21, from Knebworth, Herts, was detained at Munich Airport on April 21 as she tried to collect her luggage.
It comes as a Brit couple claiming to be tourists from Thailand have been busted with more than 33kg of cannabis in their suitcases at a Spanish airport.
The pair were picked out by suspicious cops at Valencia Airport after displaying a “nervous and evasive attitude” and are now behind bars on drug trafficking charges.
Experts told The Sun how wannabe Brit Insta stars are being lured by cruel gangs into carting drugs across the world.
Then last month, a six-year-old British boy was arrested in Mauritius suspected of smuggling part of a £1.6million dope haul stuffed inside his wheelie case.
The lad was picked up by customs officials along with his mum and five other Brits as they arrived on the tropical island.
Authorities branded the use of a child in the audacious drug smuggling plot as “inhumane”.