The teenager is expected to land back in Britain tonight after completing a five and a half hour flight from Tbilisi to London Luton Airport
13:20, 04 Nov 2025Updated 14:47, 04 Nov 2025
Pregnant drug mule Bella Culley has been spotted preparing to fly home to Britain - 24 hours after being released from jail in Georgia.
The 19-year-old, who is due to give birth next month, arrived at Tbilisi's International Airport at 12.40pm UK-time alongside her mum Lyanne. She is expected to board an EasyJet flight, scheduled to leave the former Soviet republic at 1.35pm UK-time, before landing at London Luton Airport at 7pm UK-time.
An onlooker said the pair were seen running into the airport together before checking in for their flight at an EasyJet counter. They added: "They were the last people to check in for their flight. If they had been even minutes later they would have been too late to check in."
Asked how they were feeling ahead of boarding the flight, Bella's mum Lyanne said: "No comment". Earlier in the day, her lawyer Malkhaz Salakaia said: "I am very happy it ended with her free and I wish them all the best."
Bella was released from jail on Monday after a short court hearing, where she had been expected to be sentenced to jail time after admitting to smuggling drugs into Georgia earlier this year. However, in a surprise development 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 charity worker mum Lyanne, 44, after being released from the dock and also said "thank you" to the court. 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 mum Lyanne, 44, wept outside the courtroom, before telling us: "I am so happy, so happy. I know I don't look like it, but so happy. We'll need to get her passport and then we leave, either today or tomorrow.”
Prosecutor Vakhtang Tsalugelashvili said: “It was our initiative - we took into consideration her age, her condition and her good behaviour, and that she fully cooperated." A source at the court added the Georgian authorities decided to give mercy to the teenager given how close she is to giving birth.
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.
Mr Salakaia added the reprieve was agreed just minutes before today's court hearing, which began just after 10am UK-time. An onlooker said Bella burst out laughing before erupting into ecstatic cries on being told she was to be released.
Her family, including her mother Lyanne Kennedy, a charity worker, and her 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.
Mr Salakaia added the reprieve was agreed just minutes before today's court hearing, which began just after 10am UK-time. An onlooker said Bella burst out laughing before erupting into ecstatic cries on being told she was to be released.
Her family, including her mother Lyanne Kennedy, a charity worker, and her 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.
Bella's lawyer had previously said the size of the fine paid would determine the length of her sentence - with the possibility of jail time being annulled, depending on how much money was handed over. It is understood the court originally demanded 800,000 Georgian Lari (£220,000) for her release.
Despite the emergence of the plea deal, which had been expected to see Bella give birth in jail, The Mirror last week revealed how Mr Salakaia was still hoping to get her released from jail before she gave birth by requesting a pardon from Georgia's prime minister Mikheil Kavelashvili, a former professional footballer who played for Man City.
If the presidential pardon bid had failed, we told at the time how Bella could still be released on parole before giving birth due to her pregnancy and good behaviour since her incarceration.
If she had been forced to stay in jail, sources in Georgia said she would have been transferred from jail to a nearby hospital to give birth before being allowed to raise her child behind bars. It was expected she would have been given a separate special room in custody set up to accommodate her and her child’s needs.
Speaking at the weekend, her mum Lyanne said her daughter had been moved to a mother and baby unit inside the jail just days earlier and had been boiling pasta in a kettle and toasting bread over a candle flame inside.
She revealed: "She now gets two hours out for walking, she can use the communal kitchen, has a shower in her room and a proper toilet. They all cook for each other. Bella has been making eggy bread and cheese toasties, and salt and pepper chicken."
At a previous hearing last week, Mr Salakaia had requested his client be released on bail ahead of today's sentencing hearing. But Judge Giorgi Gelashvili denied the motion telling him there were no legal grounds on which to change her conditions.
Speaking at the previous hearing Mr Salakaia said: "She pleaded guilty, fully co-operated with the investigation and the plea bargain has just been reached. So we'd like to ask the judge to release her on bail, given her advanced pregnancy."
During the same hearing, Bella was heard asking her lawyer: "Will I be able to take the baby with me if I go back to jail?". He told her: "Nobody is going to take the baby away from you".
Bella, a student nurse from Billingham, Teesside, went missing in Pattaya, Thailand, in May before later turning up in Georgia, which was part of the USSR until 1991. She was arrested after 11kg of cannabis and over 400g of hashish, a highly potent form of cannabis, 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 if she refused to co-operate.
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."