'I'm not a bad person': Brit, 28, arrested in USA before Manchester Airport flight home breaks silence

A British woman who faces 60 years in a US jail for 'drug smuggling' has broken her silence - insisting she is innocent and 'not a bad person'.

Kim Hall had travelled from Mexico to Chicago’s O’Hare airport where she was due to get on her connecting flight home to Manchester. But Homeland Security investigators detained the beautician, from Middlesborough, after they reportedly discovered 43kg of cocaine - worth millions of pounds - packed in two suitcases on August 18.

She now faces 60 years in jail and is due to appear at a US court today, the Mirror reports. Ahead of her court appearance, the 28-year-old spoke to the Sun and said she would 'fight with every bone in her body to prove her innocence'.

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Ms Hall claimed she agreed to bring two suitcases home for a pair of British men under the belief the bags contained only cash. She insisted she was forced to carry the bags at gunpoint, after being offered the free holiday to Mexico by the two men she befriended on an earlier break to Portugal - who said they had real estate interests in Central America.

She wept as she said: "I’m not a bad person. I’ve never been in trouble in my life and I’m not guilty of what they are accusing me of. They held a gun to my head and threatened to shoot me.

"I’m not a drug trafficker and I’m going to fight with every bone in my body to prove my innocence."

When her week-long trip to Cancun was coming to an end, Ms Hall claimed the men asked her to take two suitcases back with her, which they said contained $250,000 (£195,000) in cash. "I agreed to it because there was no reason not to.

"It was just money and I didn't see anything wrong in it," she said. The beautician claimed she missed her flight due to a mix up with timings, after which point one of the men held a gun to her head and threatened her.

And when Ms Hall finally caught a flight home, she landed at Chicago's O'Hare airport for a connection, which is when officials carried out a random bag check as they were suspicious of her having two suitcases. She said: “As I was passing through security they opened up one of the cases.

“The man said to me, ‘What are you trying to bring in?’ I looked in the case and thought, that’s not money. It looked like papier mache and was covered in some type of oil. My next thought was, is that cheese?

“They started to tear the cases apart and handcuffed me and took me into a room. I knew by then I had been set up. I was in shock. It was such a bizarre feeling, like I was watching someone else in a film.

"I couldn’t breathe and began having a panic attack. When the full realisation of what it all meant hit me, I cried and cried."

The young woman collapsed in tears as she was handcuffed and taken to prison. Ms Hall is now on house arrest and is only allowed out two days a week, with two electronic tags attached to her.

Her father John Hall, 59, previously defended his daughter, saying all she is guilty of is 'stupidity and naivety'. He also said she 'desperately needs help' from the UK Government ahead of her US court appearance.

A Foreign Office spokesperson told the Sun: "We are supporting a British woman on bail in the US and are in touch with the local authorities."

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