British teen Bella Culley speaks for first time after being freed from Georgia prison

Bella Culley, a pregnant British teenager who was held in Georgia over drug smuggling charges, has spoken out for the first time after being freed from prison. Outside Tbilisi City court on Monday (3 November), the 19-year-old said she was “happy and relieved” to be going back to the UK after being held in an ex-Soviet prison for more than five months. She told reporters that she did not expect to be freed today, before hugging her lawyer Malkhaz Salakaia and walking away with her mother Lyanne Kennedy. Last week, her family made a payment of £137,000 to reduce her sentence after reaching a plea bargain with prosecutors at Tbilisi City Court. She had been facing up to twenty years in prison when she was first arrested.