Michaella McCollum, who served three years in a Peruvian jail on drug smuggling charges, has extended her sympathies to Bella May Culley and Charlotte May Lee, both of whom face lengthy sentences she says would be far beyond her own limit
Peru Two’s Michaella McCollum has issued a startling warning to Bella May Culley and Charlotte May Lee, both of whom are currently awaiting trial overseas on charges of international drug smuggling.
Teeside teen Bella was arrested in Georgia, where she was allegedly caught trying to smuggle 14kg of cannabis into the country. The 18-year-old nursing student, who claims she is pregnant, is currently being held behind the squalid walls of Tbilisi Prison Number 5, and could face a life sentence of convicted.
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Meanwhile, 21-year-old Charlotte now faces a possible sentence of 20 to 25 years behind bars following her arrest in Sri Lanka. The Coulsdon-born former TUI air hostess was allegedly caught with two suitcases containing synthetic cannabis worth £1.2 million.
Both of the young women, who are not believed to be linked, deny the charges they face. For now, they await their fates far from home, and, should the worst happen, Michaella believes they could be in for a hellish time.
In an interview with the Mail Online, Michaella opened up about the three harrowing years she spent behind the bars of a tough prison near the Peruvian capital of Lima after being convicted of drug smuggling. Northern Irish-born Michaella was just 19 years old when she effectively agreed to become a drug mule, a decision she regards as the greatest mistake of her life.
Although the now 31-year-old has agreed that she deserved to serve her time, she says three years was her “top limit”, and cannot imagine looking ahead to the potentially lengthy sentences currently facing Bella and Charlotte, whom she regards as “victims”.
Showing sympathy for the plight of the two young women, Michaella, who is now a mum of twin boys, told the publication: “I could not do 20 years in a prison like that,’ she says. ‘I just couldn’t. And that’s what those girls are facing.”
Shedding light on some of the nightmarish conditions she herself faced as an inmate, Michaella, who has now carved out a new life for herself as a public speaker, recalled how she had to look out for maggots in her prison paella, remembering: “I remember how I’d lay all the rice out, to see which grains I could eat and which were maggots. Back home, it was reported that I’d gone on hunger strike, but I hadn’t.”
Michaela’s dedicated mum would turn up at the prison with bags of food, waiting outside the prison in the burning heat to feed her incarcerated daughter. She continued: “She’d bring a whole chicken, which I’d eat with my fingers, and there would be cockroaches climbing up onto the table, and I’d just flick them away. I mean, they didn’t even bother me, by then.
“You become so used to it. And I suppose there is a level of guilt and shame that you feel it’s acceptable, even though it isn’t.”
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