A PENSIONER who used to live near Colchester has been jailed after trying to smuggle £80,000 of cocaine into the UK.

Derek Orton, 76, was found with two kilos of the drug concealed inside his briefcase when he was searched at Heathrow Airport on February this year.

Orton, originally from Alresford but now living in Kampala, Uganda, was stopped by UK Border Agency officials after returning from Nairobi on Thursday, February 11.

He pleaded guilty to drug smuggling charges, saying he did it to finance his daughter’s education at a university in Africa.

At his sentencing at Isleworth Crown Court today, he was jailed for five years.