DRUGS mule Michaella McCollum has described her involvement in a cocaine smuggling operation as a "moment of madness" but says she "didn't know how to walk away".
The Co Tyrone woman, who was granted parole last week from a Peruvian jail, has also insisted she deserves "that second chance".
In her first interview since she was freed on Thursday after serving more than two years behind bars, McCollum, whose appearance has been completely transformed, has claims she has turned her life around.
"I'm not the same person that I was when I committed the crime...I've matured a lot," she said.
The 23 year-old from Dungannon and Melissa Reid from Glasgow were jailed in 2013 for six years and eight months after admitting trying to smuggle cocaine worth £1.5 million from Peru to Spain.
McCollum was freed under new legislation on early prison release introduced in Peru last year. It is anticipated she will remain in the country for a considerable period as part of her parole conditions.
The Irish News revealed on Saturday that she will spend her time working with Catholic missionaries in helping people with Aids and HIV.
Reid remains in prison in Peru as she has been seeking to serve the remainder of her sentence closer to home in Scotland.
In an interview aired on RTE One on Sunday night, McCollum described when she fully became aware of the seriousness of what she had become involved in.
"The night before that's when it became a reality and we had to pack our cases…I felt sick …sick with nerves…sick with worry," she said.
"I remember getting sick…standing in the airport, knowing that I’m doing something wrong …..I didn’t know how to walk away.
"It didn't feel real…I didn’t feel like this was really happening …I was scared..I wanted to curl up into a ball and die."
McCollum acknowledged the potentially devastating consequences if she had successfully smuggled the drugs back to Europe.
"I probably would have had a lot of blood on my hands," she said.
"I potentially could have filled Europe full of a lot of drugs. I could have potentially killed a lot of people, not directly but I could have caused a lot of harm to people."
McCollum and Reid were caught trying to board a flight to Spain with 24lb (11kg) of cocaine in food packets hidden inside their luggage at Lima airport in August 2013.
They claimed they were forced into carrying the drugs but later pleaded guilty to charges.
But McCollum insisted on Sunday night the same situation could "easily happen to anybody who’s been on vacation and has been misled".
"I thought I’m just picking up something and bringing it back, I never thought of the contents and what’s inside and what it could do to people," she said.
"I was very naive, I was so young very insecure, a lot of times I didn’t know how to say no to something.
"I was scared to take responsibility because I didn’t know what would happen then."
McCollum added: "I'm not the same person that I was when I committed the crime…I've matured a lot, I’ve learnt a lot of things that ten years in university I probably couldn’t learn".
McCollum also described the guilt of allowing her family to think she was missing when she embarked on the drugs smuggling.
"The guilt…it’s something I have to live with for the rest of my life...I don’t think that guilt is ever going to go away because how could I forgive myself for doing that."
Her family are understood to have learnt of her arrest when images of her and Reid were broadcast standing beside with the drugs haul.
McCollum, who was pictured with her hair in a top bun, said in her interview on Sunday night that when she first spoke to her family following her arrest, "my mum said, please take your bun down, please take your bun down".
She also revealed how during her time in jail she had "forgotten the things that everybody takes for granted in life".
"Seeing the sun, seeing the darkness, seeing the moon and the stars, things I haven't seen in almost three years."
She said she now plans to study psychology adding: "I made a decision in a moment of madness. I'm not a bad person. I want to demonstrate that I'm a good person".
