A BURY teenager has pleaded not guilty to trying to smuggle 3,400 ecstasy tablets into Thailand.

Michael Connell is due to stand trial in Bangkok on Monday, February 23.

If he is convicted, the 19-year-old, of Kestrel Drive, Bury, faces the death penalty.

The teenager was brought before the courts in manacles on Monday.

He is accused of flying from Manchester with the drugs, worth £50,000, hidden in two empty tubs of body cream.

Connell, who has learning difficulties, was arrested at Bangkok airport on November 10 last year after the tablets were allegedly discovered in the containers in his travel bag as it was x-rayed.

Following his arrest, the teenager protested his innocence but said he was considering pleading guilty to save his life.

He claims he bought the lotion from Tesco, Bury, before he went abroad.

Connell is being held at the Khlong Prem prison, nicknamed the Bangkok Hilton.

On Monday night his father, Derek, was shown on BBC 1's Inside Out as he visited his son in prison and described Connell as gullible and naive. It is the first time he has seen his son since his arrest.

Mr Connell said his overriding impression of the jail was the noisy environment.

He said: "It's very noisy.

"You realise your son's coming when you hear the clanking of the chains, clanking, clanking, clanking. Every step, you hear the clanking of the chains.

"Michael climbed up to show us his leg irons. They are big, heavy duty irons."

Last month, Bury North MP David Chaytor MP pleaded with the Thai government for clemency for former St Paul's CE Primary School pupil Connell and asked that the unemployed teenager is sent home to face justice in Britain.

The death sentence is the norm for anyone caught smuggling drugs in Thailand, but most Westerners have their sentences reduced to long prison terms.

A Thai police inspector has recently been sentenced to death for possessing 38,000 amphetamine tablets.