A pensioner who was caught with £1 million worth of drugs on a cruise ship with his wife has been extradited from Portugal to finish his sentence in the UK.

Cocaine smuggler Roger Clarke,74, who used to live in Chatham, has left a prison in Lisbon after his partner Susan,72, died from breast cancer.

The grandparents were jailed for eight years after 20lbs of drugs was found stitched into the lining of suitcases.

They were arrested when they docked at the Portuguese capital in December 2018 as their luxury liner sailed in from the Caribbean.

Prosecutors had claimed it was just one of four trips in two years, which each netted the mules £26,500, but the couple insisted they were conned by local criminals.

The couple were sentenced in September 2019, despite professing their innocence.

In the past his attempts to transfer to this country, including a plea to former Prime Minister Boris Johnson, failed.

Clarke is now being held in HMP High Down in Surrey, where he is expected to serve the rest of his term, according to national media outlets.

Susan Clarke, a former secretary, died alone in a cramped cell at a maximum security prison.

She was allowed to visit her husband in the final weeks of her life but the pair had to communicate through a perspex screen, reported the Daily Mirror.

A source told the paper Susan had been due to fly back to England to finish her sentence, adding: “She was handed a life sentence – left to die in a foreign prison with no loved ones around her."

The Chatham couple were arrested after a tip-off as the Marco Polo headed into Lisbon from the Caribbean in December 2018.