RTÉ WILL TONIGHT air the first interview with freed drug smuggler Michaella McCollum in which she says that she is “not a bad person”.

McCollum was jailed along with Scottish woman Melissa Reid after being arrested at Lima Airport in August 2013, having been found with a large quantity of cocaine in food packets inside their luggage.

Both received sentences of six and a half years, but Michaella was released on parole this week.

In the interview, to air on RTÉ One tonight at 9.30pm, the 23-year-old says that she had forgotten certain things while in prison.

“I’ve 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 that she understood the potential consequences of the drugs reaching Europe.

“If the drugs had of got back [to Europe] what could have happened, I probably would have had a lot of blood on my hands.

“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.”

However, she maintains that she is a good person who made a decision in a “moment of madness”.

“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.”

Read: Michaella McCollum has been freed from prison in Peru

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