Lyanne Kennedy (44) spent more than two hours with 19-year-old Bella May Culley in Women’s Penitentiary Number Five
Lyanne Kennedy (44) spent more than two hours with the 19-year-old in Women’s Penitentiary Number Five.
According to MailOnline, the tearful mum was spotted walking out of the gates alongside the teenager’s grandfather, William Culley (82).
Culley, who was caught in the capital, Tbilisi, with £200,000 worth of cannabis in her luggage in May, could be allowed to walk free – if she pays a heavy fine.
He judge adjourned her trial yesterday at the last minute as it was reported that the defence and prosecution are close to reaching a plea deal.
Bella May Culley
News in 90 Seconds – September 3
She could be freed if she pays the fee, which lawyers who specialise in freeing foreigners locked up in Georgia say could total £100,000.
Professor Anna Putkaradze, a Georgian lawyer specialising in cases involving foreigners, says the sum is usually half the street value of the illicit items they are caught with.
Professor Putkaradze told MailOnline: “If the prosecution is calculating the fine based on the estimated street value of the heavy drugs in Britain, rather than in Georgia, I would estimate it at around £100,000.”
Culley, from Billingham, County Durham is accused of carrying 30lbs of cannabis into Georgia that was allegedly found in her suitcase when she arrived on a flight from Thailand.
In May it was reported how she was “depressed, confused and scared” as she faces possible life imprisonment.
Revealing that she was pregnant, her lawyer Ia Todua told Radio Free Europe (RFE): “She needs special examination and attention. In addition, in my assessment, she was depressed, confused and scared.”
Culley sparked a massive international search operation after she was reported missing while she was believed to be holidaying in Thailand.
It was later revealed the teen had been arrested 4,000 miles away on drug offences in Georgia.
The nursing student, whose family had issued a plea for help finding her when she went missing, appeared in a video being walked into the Central Criminal Police Department in Tbilisi while in handcuffs.
She had been flagged during a scanner check at Tbilisi International Airport where an inspection revealed “34 hermetically sealed packages containing marijuana were found in the passenger’s bag, as well as 20 packages of hashish,” local media reports.
Culley has since been charged with purchasing and storing marijuana, and illegally importing it into Georgia.
She has been denied bail as she posed a flight risk, local media reports, while the country’s Interior Ministry has said the crime can mean “up to 20 years – or life imprisonment”.
The country’s only female prison, Tbilisi Prison No 5, located 45 minutes away from the ex-Soviet capital, was previously described as “inhumane” and an “affront to civilized society” by the Human Rights Watch.
According to MailOnline, a 2006 report recorded the cells in the Georgian prison as smelling “strongly of human sweat, human excrement, and cigarette smoke”.
A 2015 report from a monitoring group with the Georgian Public Ombudsman revealed that new intake prisoners are “inspected naked and are requested to squat”, something inmates “consider degrading treatment”.
The report adds: “It should be mentioned that such inspections take place every time an accused/convicted person enters or leaves the penitentiary facility.
“According to inmates, this procedure is especially humiliating and intensive during an inmate’s menstrual cycle. In some cases, because of the nature of such procedures, inmates refuse services offered outside of the facility or choose to miss court hearings.”
Culley was believed to have been on holiday in southeast Asia, in the Pattaya area, near Bangkok, before her phone was turned off.
The teenager’s family previously said she first flew out to the Philippines just after Easter this year and had then flown to Thailand around May 3.
The teen, who recently finished a course at Middlesbrough College with the aim of becoming a nurse, was in regular contact with her mother Lyanne Kennedy and had been posting on social media until Monday, May 5.
Her family initially appealed for help to trace her whereabouts, with police in Thailand involved in the search.
But Cleveland Police have since revealed that authorities in Georgia have confirmed that “an 18-year-old woman from Billingham” had been arrested “on suspicion of drugs offences and that she remains in their custody”.
Before police confirmed Culley’s arrest, her mother Lyanne told Teesside Live: “She flew out to the Philippines after Easter with a friend and she was there for three weeks.
“She was posting loads of pictures and then she went to Thailand on about May 3.
“The last message she sent was to me and that was on Saturday at 5.30pm saying she was going to Facetime me later.
“That was the last message anyone has received from what we can figure out up to now.
Her mother had also told The Sun that she had a bad feeling about the then 18-year-old’s trip to Thailand and said she did not want her to go.
“I begged her to come home. I don’t trust some of the boys over there,” she said.
“But she wanted to meet up with some friends she made over there on a previous trip. I don’t know who any of them are.”