A MAN has been jailed for three years after he swallowed almost £10,000 worth of cocaine to smuggle into Southend to evade police who were out in force during the Olympics.

Stephen Barber, 23, swallowed 215 grams of the class A drug before travelling home from London last summer Basildon Crown Court heard.

He made it home successfully, but when cops raided his address in Hampton Gardens, Southend, on July 10 last year, they found 42 wraps of cocaine and it was apparent to officers that they had been ingested.

The total haul amounted to £8,600, and the court heard the stash would have secured hundreds of deals.

Passing sentence, Judge Owen Davies said: “You were a conduit to bring cocaine to be delivered in a manner by which you would have evaded detection by anyone who may have stopped you, and that is extremely serious.

“The line from London to Basildon is served by people like you who bring substantial quantities of drugs into this area.”

The court heard that Barber had agreed to be a courier for the drug after racking up debts from his own cocaine usage.