Bella Culley: Pregnant UK backpacker faces life in Georgian jail after drug arrest abroad

What started as a tropical escape for 18-year-old Bella Culley has spiralled into a global cautionary tale.

The British backpacker, now pregnant and locked inside a freezing Georgian prison, was arrested at Tbilisi Airport after authorities allegedly found more than 14 kilograms of cannabis and hashish in her suitcase.

She had just flown in from Thailand, where weeks of sun-soaked island hopping ended with a 20-hour journey and a drug trafficking charge that could see her jailed for life.

Ms Culley’s case is now making headlines not just for its severity, but for what it reveals about the darker side of spontaneous overseas adventures — where quick friendships, vague promises, and blind trust can end with handcuffs and headlines.

The teen, from Billingham in County Durham, is reportedly being held on remand at Tbilisi’s No. 5 Women’s Penitentiary — a crumbling Soviet-era prison where she shares a cell with two other women and has reportedly received no medical attention since revealing she is pregnant.

“She told me she asked for a doctor but couldn’t communicate and he didn’t speak English,” said her new lawyer, celebrity advocate Mariam Kublashvili, who has taken the case pro bono, told The Sun.

“She’s cold, sad, and very scared. And she desperately needs medical care.”

According to Ms Kublashvili, Ms Culley arrived at their first meeting in a flimsy green outfit, shivering and timid.

She asked for fruit, warm clothes, and a tin of tuna, one of the few signs of levity in an otherwise bleak picture. The tuna, it turns out, isn’t allowed inside.

But how did a teenager from northern England end up facing life in a foreign jail?

It has been reported that her family says Ms Culley was lured by a man known only as “Ross or Russ” during her time in Southeast Asia, someone who allegedly introduced her to other Brits suspected of using young travellers as drug mules.

Photos from her trip show Ms Culley posing with bundles of cash, smoking what appears to be a joint, and joking about “Bonnie and Clyde” antics.

It’s the kind of digital footprint that now sits in sharp contrast to her current reality: locked in a foreign prison, cut off from her parents, and facing a system with little leniency for drug importation.

Her father, Niel Culley, an oil rig worker based in Vietnam, and her aunt have flown to Georgia but have yet to see Ms Culley in person. Her mother remains in the UK, reportedly unable to afford the trip.

Red tape and legal bureaucracy have so far blocked any family contact.

In court last week, Ms Culley quietly confirmed her pregnancy — a revelation that added urgency to her legal team’s concerns about her well-being.

Ms Kublashvili says her client shows no signs of being a hardened trafficker.

“She’s been used,” she said.

“It’s clear she doesn’t understand the depth of what she’s caught up in.”

And the consequences are severe.

In Georgia, drug trafficking carries a minimum of 15 years in prison and can extend to a life sentence.

As the legal case unfolds, Ms Culley’s lawyer has promised to deliver food, warm clothes, and any support she can offer.