A NEWPORT woman jailed for eight years after being found with a kilo of cocaine at a South American airport can expect her prison conditions to be overcrowded, sometimes violent and prone to corruption and abuse, according to a campaigning group.

It is not known in which prison Leah Pugsley, 21, is serving her eight-year sentence for attempting to transport a narcotic substance out of Venezuela, but British nationals are currently held in five prisons.

Anti-drug officers from the Venuzuelan National Guard arrested Pugsley, then 19, at Maiquetia international airport near Caracas in December 2004 as she tried to leave the country on an Air France plane bound for Paris with drugs in her suitcase.

Wrappings containing the cocaine, which was 56 per cent pure, were found among the clothes.

The former Hartridge Comprehensive School pupil admitted the facts the prosecution presented when she appeared in a court in Vargas province on a charge of transporting an illicit substance or narcotic.

Pugsley, who had an Essex address at the time of her arrest but whose family live in Anson Green, Newport, will not be eligible for release from prison until December 3, 2012.

Campaign group Prisoners Abroad reports that the United Nations' 'Standard Minimum Rules forthe Treatment of Prisoners' has been brought into national legislation, yet a human rights director of the Attorney General's Office criticized the state of Venezuela's prisons, describing "intolerable physical deterioration which harms the human and constitutional rights of the prison population".

In recent years, families of Venezuelan prisoners have staged street protests to highlight the conditions which they face, taking their campaign for change to Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez.

Most prison buildings date from the end of the 19th century. During the 1990s the prison population ranged from 25,000 to 30,000 - up to double what the prisons were built to hold.

Some European prisoners have described having to buy their own food in order to survive, and get their families to send cash monthly to pay for "rent" on their cell.

"In most prisons, inmates have to provide everything themselves including bedding, clothing and toiletries," a spokesman for Prisoners Abroad said.

"The water supply is communal and cold only.

"Overcrowding has been described as the chief factor in the high level of violence in certain prisons, which are generally understaffed, in poor repair and plagued by corruption and abuse.

"Some are worse than others with weapons and gangs reported. At times the National Guard are brought in to deal with outbreaks of violence."

The five prisons British citizens are currently held in are: La Planta in the capital, Caracas; nearby Los Teques and San Juan in San Juan de los Morros, 130km south west of Caracas; San Antonio is on Margarita Island, off the north coast; Santa Ana is in San Cristobal, near the Colombian border.