A LORRY driver who smuggled £22million of cocaine into the UK hidden in frozen meat has been locked up for 20 years.

Dutch national Robert Tromp, 49, was stopped at Harwich International Port on November 11, 2019.

Border Force officers conducted a search of his trailer, finding 280kg of cocaine stashed inside two pallets of frozen chicken meat.

Throughout a trial at Chelmsford Crown Court, the jury heard how Tromp had made two previous trips to the UK in the same lorry, carrying a cargo of low-grade chicken.

Mark Seymour, prosecuting, said he carried documentation only permitting a journey to carry goods to Crowborough, in Sussex.

But after arriving in Harwich from the Hook of Holland on October 30 and November 4, Tromp instead drove to a location in Huntington, Cambridgeshire.

The prosecution said this unauthorised journey was made in order to deliver “the dirty side” of the load.

Mr Seymour said: “Huntingdon clearly had a purpose.

“That purpose, the Crown say, is very straightforward and very simple, to drop part of the load in Huntingdon – that part being, as per trip three, two pallets which have drugs on board.”

The court heard the drugs seized in November 2019 had a purity of between 70 and 80 per cent.

Following a trial lasting around two weeks, Tromp, of Hillegom, in the Netherlands, was convicted of one charge of fraudulently evading a prohibition on an importation.

The key issue during the trial was knowledge, with Tromp claiming he lacked any awareness of a drug smuggling operation.

Nick Bonehill, mitigating, said: “He’s been a driver for 27 years.

“He is a single, divorced man who was living with his now 74-year-old mother.

“His father died 11 years ago, his mother is not in the greatest of health and whilst he tells me he has had some contact with his mother over the last year and a half, he is sure the effects of what has been going on in relation to him have worsened her health.”

Mr Bonehill called on the judge to give Tromp “some light at the end of the tunnel”.

Sentencing Tromp to 20 years’ imprisonment, Recorder Richard Christie QC said he played a significant role in the importation of a “massive” quantity of cocaine, motivated by financial gain.

He said: “The drugs in this case were packed cleverly, within meat and concealed then within boxes and within the load that was being transported of low-value frozen chicken.”