A pregnant British teenager accused of drug-smuggling has been moved to a mother-and-baby unit in a Georgian prison, her mother said.<\/p>\n
Bella May Culley, 19, who is reported to be eight months pregnant, was arrested at Tbilisi airport in May.<\/p>\n
It is alleged that the 19-year-old, from Teesside in north-east England, tried to smuggle 12kg (26.4lbs) of marijuana and 2kg (4.4lbs) of hashish into the country.<\/p>\n
Culley\u2019s mother, Lyanne Kennedy, told the BBC that her daughter had been transferred to a prison with a mother-and-baby unit.<\/p>\n
She was held previously at Rustavi Prison No 5, with the broadcaster reporting that she had a hole in the ground for a toilet, one hour of fresh air each day and communal showers twice a week.<\/p>\n
Lyanne Kennedy speaks to the media after a hearing last week at Tbilisi city court. Photograph: Irakli Gedenidze\/Reuters<\/p>\n
Kennedy told the BBC that during Culley\u2019s time there she had toasted bread over a candle flame and boiled pasta in a kettle, but now she had been moved to a different prison her conditions appeared to have improved.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe now gets two hours out for walking, she can use the communal kitchen, has a shower in her room and a proper toilet,\u201d Kennedy told the BBC. \u201cThey all cook for each other \u2013 Bella has been making eggy bread and cheese toasties, and salt and pepper chicken.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kennedy said the family was doing everything it could to get Culley home \u201cwhere she should be\u201d.<\/p>\n
She said her daughter\u2019s full story \u201cwill come in time\u201d, adding: \u201cUntil then we are just a family doing everything we can for my daughter and grandson.\u201d<\/p>\n
It has been reported that the teenager has described being tortured by gangsters in Thailand and forced to bring the drugs into the country.<\/p>\n
It is expected that Culley will find out her sentence on Monday, after her lawyers negotiated with judicial authorities in Georgia. Her family has paid more than \u00a3137,000 as part of a plea deal aimed at reducing her sentence.<\/p>\n
Her lawyer, Malkhaz Salakaia, told the BBC that once an agreement was reached he would appeal to the president of Georgia to pardon the teenager.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A pregnant British teenager accused of drug-smuggling has been moved to a mother-and-baby unit in a Georgian prison,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":545488,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[13,12,14],"class_list":{"0":"post-545487","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-stories"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115483764509607335","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/545487","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=545487"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/545487\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/545488"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=545487"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=545487"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=545487"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}