I was belatedly baptised last week in the Church of England, and though Christians are enjoined to show compassion to sinners and forgive them their trespasses, my eyes do not fill with tears at the plight of 18-year-old Bella May Culley from Middlesbrough. Bella currently finds herself in Prison No. 5 in the Georgian capital, Tbilisi after she was accused of smuggling drugs into the country. The prison is described in British media reports as decaying and dangerous, but which, from the pictures, looks tough, austere and simply furnished – no worse than one might expect of correctional facilities in the Caucasian republic.
Even someone as daft as Bella must be vaguely aware that in certain Asian countries, smuggling drugs can carry the death penalty
Bella mysteriously vanished from a trip to the Philippines and Thailand. Her family back home on Teesside say they had no idea what had happened to her until she suddenly surfaced in a Tbilisi court this week, charged with trying to smuggle a suitcase filled with 14kg of cannabis into the country.
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