A NEW video has been released showing drugs mule Melissa Reid speaking for the first time from her cramped, dimly lit prison cell in Peru.
With her once-long blonde hair shorn to a bob and discomfort etched on her face, the 20-year-old Scot delivers an anguished testimony to camera.
It is almost 10 months since Reid, from Lenzie near Glasgow and Michaella McCollum Connolly, from Dungannon in Northern Ireland, were caught trying to smuggle £1.5 million worth of cocaine out of the country.
"A year ago today I was having the time of my life and look where I am now, look at what I'm having to put up with, look at what I've put myself through," said Reid.
"To anybody out there … just watch yourself, just be careful, don't get yourself in a position like this."
The release of the video comes after news last week that the "Peru Two" had been moved unexpectedly from the all-female Virgen de Fatima jail in Lima to the notorious Ancon 2 prison, a facility set in a bleak desert landscape hours away from the Peruvian capital.
Reid and McCollum Connolly are serving jail terms of almost seven years and until recently had believed they would soon be transferred back to the UK to finish their sentences.
The new footage offers a glimpse into the stark conditions in which Reid is being held, showing grey, graffitied walls.
"I don't know how long right now it's going to take me to get home," she said. "I'm worried and I'm scared and I'm lonely and I've never been in this position and I don't know what to do. I don't know how to improve how I'm feeling.
"I can't improve my living conditions so I just need to live for the day and obviously hope that this is going to improve at some point."
The last time Reid was filmed speaking on camera was on the day she and McCollum Connolly were arrested last August.
They were detained after security staff at Lima International Airport discovered 24lb of cocaine stuffed inside food packets in their suitcases as they tried to board a flight to Madrid.
Reid protested their innocence and claimed they had been forced by a gang to carry the drugs against their will. They later pleaded guilty to smuggling after being warned that they faced up to 15 years behind bars if tried and found guilty.
In December, they were sentenced to six years and eight months in prison.
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