Peru drug arrests: Melissa interrogated on birthday

Michaella McCollum Connolly, right, and Melissa Reid. Picture: AP

The alleged drug mule urged Debra Reid, 53, to pray for her and admitted she had frequently been brought to tears by her grim situation.

In a childish scrawl on both sides of a crumpled piece of A4, she wrote: “This is one birthday I will be forgetting ASAP!”

She described co-accused Michaella McCollum as a “sister for life”, but is clearly terrified about the fate awaiting them.

“I found it hard in here at first,” she wrote. “I was crying in here a lot and could not handle the language barrier.”

She added: “I am s******* my pants for what has to come for me.”

And she signed off with: “Love you all so much. Pray for me please and stay strong.”

Her mother has told a Sunday newspaper that she fears her daughter will be “cheated” out of “life-defining” events such as getting married and having children. If the women continue to protest their innocence, they could be jailed for up to 15 years.

Mrs Reid said: “If, God forbid, she doesn’t get out until she is 35, that is quite late to be thinking about meeting someone and settling down. I can’t bear to think of Melissa being cheated out of having children. She has always wanted a family of her own.”

She added: “She was probably too trusting and she was definitely naïve to the drugs culture.

“But there is no way she was ever willingly involved in supplying.”