Peru Two coke mule Melissa Reid praised as she puts criminal past behind her by landing advice job at busy charity
COKE mule Melissa Reid has been praised for putting her criminal past firmly behind her - less than a year after her Peruvian prison hell ended.
The ex-con returned to her home near Glasgow 12 months ago amid a blaze of publicity over her drug-smuggling shame.
But while her brazen accomplice Michaella McCollum has tried to cash in on their notoriety, humbled Melissa appears to have knuckled down after being given a role at a busy charity.
The 23-year-old catches a bus to a worthy job with the Citizens Advice.
Demurely dressed and looking confident, she strode into work last week clutching a packed lunch bag - barely drawing a glance from colleagues or passersby.
A source said: “Melissa has been keeping her head down. She’s landed a role with a charity and is living a normal life.
“She’d much rather be doing that than posing in a bikini or appearing on telly like Michaella seems intent on doing.
“She seems to have taken the opposite path to her co-accused and is trying to quietly rebuild her life.
“It looks as if she has left her old ways behind and is trying to give something back to the community.
“She just seems polite and completely down to earth.”
Party girls Melissa and Michaella, 24, from Dungannon, Northern Ireland, met in Ibiza in 2013, where they claimed they were recruited by a drugs gang.
They were eventually banged up for six years and eight months.