Parents fly out to girls facing charges of cocaine smuggling

Michaella McCollum Connolly, 20, from Northern Ireland, and Melissa Reid, 19, a Scot, claim they were ordered at gunpoint by Colombian gangsters to smuggle £1.5m worth of cocaine out of Lima.

The pair, who deny drug trafficking allegations, were arrested while trying to board a flight from the Peruvian capital to Spain last week.

The women claim they were forced to carry the bags and were unaware they contained narcotics.

Mr and Mrs Reid said they were preparing to fly out to Lima to see their daughter, who turns 20 on Friday. Ms McCollum Connolly’s family are also believed to be making arrangements to travel to Peru.

William Reid, 53, said: “From what her friends and Melissa have been able to tell us, she was introduced to a group of men who she socialised with and this escalated to her being forced to carry out this journey.

“They came into her flat and told her to pack a bag. She didn’t know where she was going. My daughter would 100 per cent not have gone willingly. This is completely out of character. She was coerced into it.”

Her mother Debra said: “She was planning on going to a special nightclub for her birthday. Her brother Liam is getting married in February and she was very excited about it.

“It will be heartbreaking for us if she’s not there. We can’t even think about her being in Peru for several years.”

The women claimed to have been coerced into carrying the drugs by members of a violent drug gang who put loaded guns to their heads.

Ms Reid insisted: “We were given no option. If we didn’t do as we were told, we would be dead. We were not smuggling for money, we were smuggling for our lives.

“We have no doubt they would have killed us both without hesitation if we didn’t do as we were told.

“Ever since I was arrested I have played out what has happened in my mind over and over again, asking myself how could we have gotten out of it. But each time I think it wasn’t even an option.

“We both had loaded guns put to our heads. They were more than prepared to use them. If we didn’t do it, we were told we would die.”

The women said they were robbed of their passports and mobile phones and followed on board the flights from Spain to Peru.

Once in South America, they were ordered to carry the cocaine hidden inside food packets.

Ms Reid said the men had information on their families, who would be threatened if they failed to follow the gang’s orders.

She also claimed that the first time the women met was after being kidnapped and taken to the drug cartel’s safe house in Majorca.

Ms Reid was the first to be sent to Lima, on August 1. She was joined by photography student and former nightclub hostess Ms McCollum Connolly a day later.

She said they were “coached” on what to say if they were stopped and told to claim they were “best friends” who were travelling together.

The National Police of Peru said they found more than 24lb of cocaine – thought to be worth around £1.5m – hidden in food in the luggage of the two women. If convicted, they could face lengthy sentences in an overcrowded Peruvian prison where they will have to pay for everything, including food and bedding.

Ms McCollum Connolly, who holds an Irish passport, and Ms Reid travelled separately to the party island of Ibiza earlier this summer in search of work.