A 45-year-old Polish lorry driver has been jailed for 19 years for smugglng cocaine worth £8.8million into Dover.

Jan Uzdowski denied all knowledge of the 70.79kg of pure cocaine hidden in his refrigerated trailer and discovered by customs when Uzdowski arrived at the port on January 26.

Tom Little, prosecuting, told Canterbury Crown Court the drugs were hidden under the trailer floor and had escaped detection at both the German and French borders when the lorry was stopped.

The lorry had been fitted with a tracking device linked to a mobile phone which the Crown said would not have been entrusted to just anybody.

Five years jail for drugs importer>>>

Uzdowski claimed he was driving onions from Poland and had found a phone left on his battery.

The Crown detailed various texts checking the lorry's whereabouts - but Uzdowski said when the messages came, he just replied to them giving his location but didn't ask who was sending them.

Jailing Uzdowski, Judge Timothy Nash said: "This may not be the largest importation of Class A drugs this court has had to deal with but it is almost the largest. There has to be a substantial prison sentence."