A lorry driver has been jailed for smuggling drugs worth £4.5m through Dover in a consignment of pickled onions.

Charlie Tomlinson, 31, was caught with a staggering 23 kilos of heroin, 10 kilos of cocaine and more than 23,000 ecstasy tablets when he was stopped at Dover's Eastern Docks on August 2 last year.

When UK Border Agency officers searched the lorry and trailer they found white powder in the roof, which later tested positive for cocaine.

Bolts in the inner roof holding the outer in place were removed and the drugs were revealed hidden in the space between the two.

When totted up later, the heroin was valued as having a potential street value of up to £2.1 million, the cocaine as £1.7 million and the ecstasy £71,000.

Tomlinson, of Melbourne Avenue, Chelmsford, denied the smuggling offence, but was jailed for 12 years at Maidstone Crown Court today.

Malcolm Bragg from Border Force said: "This was a sophisticated drugs concealment and shows the lengths criminals will go to in attempting to evade the UK’s border controls.

The drugs found in the roof of Charlie Tomlinson's lorry

“The sentence handed down today should act as a warning to those who attempt to smuggle illegal drugs into this country.

"Drug use destroys not only the lives of individual users, but also their families and the wider community.”