The teenager, who had a blanket wrapped around her baby bump, arrived home in Billingham, Cleveland, with her mum Lyanne and other loved ones before heading inside
Pregnant drug mule Bella Culley finally arrived back to her family home in the early hours of Wednesday morning and told her loved ones: “I can’t wait to get into my own bed.”
The 19-year-old, who is due to give birth next month, and her mum Lyanne, 44, were seen arriving at their house in Billingham, Cleveland, following a 225-mile drive from London Luton Airport. An onlooker said: “Bella looked tired, but relieved to finally be home. She was embraced by family members who had met her at the airport before walking in through the front door”.
The pair had landed back in Britain at 7pm on Tuesday night where they were seen hugging loved ones at arrivals before armed police whisked the group away in order to avoid waiting media.
Bella and Lyanne had earlier been seen rushing to make their flight home from Georgian capital Tbilisi, where the teenager had spent nearly six months behind bars. They checked in at 12.40pm UK time, just 55 minutes before take-off and dropped off their cases, including what appeared to be the same cream suitcase Georgian police found filled with £200,000 of cannabis in May.
Speaking earlier in the day before they boarded their flight, Bella’s mum said: “Bella is still very overwhelmed. She hasn’t slept and getting home to her brother, my son, is our priority today.”
On Monday, Bella was expected to be sentenced to jail time at a court hearing after admitting to smuggling drugs into the country earlier this year. But she was instead released after prosecutors decided to alter a previous plea deal that would have seen her sentenced to two years behind bars.
Bella wept and hugged her mum Lyanne and said “thank you” to the court after being released from the dock. The teenager told the Mirror her release had come as a “huge surprise”. Asked if she had expected it, she said: “No, not at all”.
She then walked free from the court while holding hands with her mum and was heard speaking to her dad Niel, 49, on the phone while in tears. She was heard telling him triumphantly: “I’m not in jail anymore!”.
He made a cheering sound before replying: “That is brilliant… brilliant!”. She added: “There’s so many cameras! I love you dad!”.
Her family, including Lyanne, a charity worker, and dad Niel Culley, an oil rig technician, had previously agreed to pay a fine of 500,000 Georgian Lari (£138,000) as part of a plea deal with Georgian prosecutors.
Prosecutor Vakhtang Tsalugelashvili said of her release: “It was our initiative. We took into consideration her age, her condition and her good behaviour, and that she fully cooperated.”
Bella’s lawyer Malkhaz Salakaia said the move would allow her to become a mother in “calmer, more stable conditions”. She had already served nearly six months in jail on remand since her arrest at the Georgian capital’s international airport on May 10.
He added the reprieve was agreed just minutes before the court hearing. A source said Bella erupted into ecstatic cries on being told she was to be released.
Bella, a student nurse from Billingham, Teesside, went missing in Pattaya, Thailand, in May then shortly afterwards turned up in Georgia. She was arrested after 11kg of cannabis and more than 400g of hashish were found in her luggage.
Bella has claimed she was forced to traffic the drugs by gangsters who branded her with an iron, showed her a video of a man being decapitated and threatened to behead her family.
At a previous hearing in July, she claimed: “I didn’t want to do this. I was forced by torture… all I wanted to do was to travel.”
