A British gang threatened to kill a teenager and her family unless she smuggled drugs to Georgia, her lawyer has claimed.

Bella May Culley was arrested after arriving at Tbilisi International Airport, just days after she went missing while travelling in Thailand.

The 19-year-old, who says she is pregnant, was subsequently charged with purchasing 446g of tetraphenolcannabinol and 11.2kg of cannabis abroad and bringing it into Georgia on May 10.

However, Malkhaz Salakaia, her lawyer, said her detention alongside a suitcase containing £200,000 worth of cannabis came after she had been “branded” with an iron and threatened with decapitation by British criminals in Thailand.

Ms Culley, from Billingham, County Durham, told Tbilisi City Court on Tuesday that she was “forced under torture” to smuggle drugs and said: “I didn’t want to do this.”

She showed the court a “long, snake-like” scar on her arm, which she claimed showed evidence she had been coerced.

Mr Salakaia told The Telegraph that the group of British criminals in Thailand had said to her: “We know the addresses of your parents, we know where your 16-year-old brother is.”

He added: “They made her watch a video of a man being decapitated and told her: ‘If you don’t do as told, this is what is going to happen to you and your family’. She felt queasy and almost fainted, but they still forced her to watch it.”