Major update on pregnant Brit teen 'drug mule' Bella Culley after drug smuggling charge

Bella Culley, the 19-year-old Brit who was expected to be sentenced to jail time in Georgia after admitting to smuggling drugs into the country, is to be released. Bella, who is reportedly due to give birth in December, was expected to be sentenced to jail time after pleading guilty to drug smuggling.

This means the teen will not have her baby inside an ex-Soviet jail. Bella's family learned just minutes before Monday morning's final hearing that a new plea bargain deal had been struck at the last minute, her lawyer claims Bella will be released imminently. This is due to be formally confirmed by Judge Giorgi Gelashvili later today.

Weeping outside the courtroom Bella's mum told the Mirror: "I am so happy, so happy. I know I don't look like it, but so happy."

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.

The student nurse from Billingham, has already served six months behind bars in Georgia after cops found £200,000 worth of cannabis stuffed inside her suitcase and had been moved to a mother and baby unit inside the jail just days ago.

Pregnant Bella claims she was tortured until she agreed to smuggle drugs out of Thailand, saying she was burned with a hot iron and shown a beheading video by a Thai gang.

In July, during a hearing, Bella stated: "I didn't want to do this. I was forced by torture... All I wanted to do was to travel and this happened to me. I'm clean - I had nothing in my blood test. I wanted to make my family proud."

Her family, including her mother Lyanne Kennedy, 44, a charity worker, and her dad Niel Culley, 49, an oil rig technician were given three weeks to find £215,000 to secure her freedom at the start of this month.

The Teeside parents scrambled to find the cash and eventually handed over 500,000 Georgian Lari (£138,000) today in a plea bargain - just falling short of the sum required.

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.