A MAN jailed for 99 years for smuggling ecstasy tablets has spoken for the first time of the horrors he faces inside Thailand's notorious Bangkok Hilton prison.

Michael Connell, from Bury, who narrowly escaped the death penalty, will appear on BBC2's The Real Bangkok Hilton tomorrow night to tell of mass overcrowding and the fear of his mentally ill cellmates.

And in a surprising revelation, shackled Connell, aged 20, will be seen by viewers admitting to smuggling the 3,400 pills to pay for a second holiday to the backpackers' paradise - something he had previously denied.

He also sends a heartfelt message to his parents and urges friends and family to help boost his morale with regular letters, telling them: "Family, I love you all. Don't worry about me. I'm fine. I'm more worried about yourselves."

He adds: "I am very worried about people forgetting me. I'm lucky at the moment because I have a few people writing to me, but I got a feeling that it is going to die down after a bit. I am hoping that it doesn't."

The prison houses 7,000 inmates in a space designed for just 4,000.

The programme features Connell, from Kestrel Avenue, Bury, along with other prisoners incarcerated for life or facing death penalties for drug trafficking.

He says: "Anything can happen in the time you are in here. The biggest fear is not knowing when I am getting out."

Jobless Connell was 19 when he was caught at Bangkok Airport in December last year.

Ecstasy tablets, with a street value of around £50,000, were wrapped in plastic and hidden in jars of face cream inside his suitcase.

After his arrest, his mother Maureen, aged 46, said she thought her son, who suffers learning difficulties and is deaf in one ear, had been the victim of a set-up.

He initially protested his innocence before pleading guilty to escape the death penalty. He is seen in the programme telling how he brought the drugs in to help pay for a second holiday to Thailand after being left spellbound by his first trip.

"I came for the holiday for the first time and enjoyed it so much when I was leaving I was heartbroken to go," he says.

"The people are dead friendly and the weather is good, in England, the sun doesn't shine very often. So I wanted to get back, but it was expensive to come over, I had to find the way to make money."

Connell does not tell interviewers how he got the money to buy the drugs, but he does tell of the moment he was trapped by customs officials.

He says: "I went down from the immigration department to collect my bag and for some reason it was already on the rail going around so I picked it up.

"I walked through customs, then they said 'Stop, can I search your bag?'

"I knew soon as they pulled them out of the bag what I was in for. Any country you're caught importing drugs, you're going to go to prison.

"I sat there - praying that I wouldn't get the death penalty."

Connell goes on to tell of overcrowding which has left him sharing a cell with 24 diseased and mentally ill prisoners.

"There are 24 people in a room which is really hard.

"There are a lot of people who are losing their minds. I am sleeping next to a guy now, he just walks around all day talking to himself."