A 55-year-old Beckenham man has been convicted after helping a UK Border Agency official in a plot to smuggle £3.8 million worth of drugs into the UK.

French police arrested the government employee, Simon Pellett, 37, in a supermarket car park between Calais and Dunkirk in October last year.

This was after David Baker, 55, from Beckenham, loaded three heavy bags into the back of Pellett's unmarked Border Agency van after driving his own car to the location.

The bags contained 6kg of heron, 34kg of cocaine, eight automatic pistols, two revolvers, three silencers and ammunition.

Alex Howard, 35, from Sittingbourne, kept lookout nearby and claimed he thought he was helping to smuggle cigarettes.

Kate Mulholland, of the Crown Prosecution Service, said: “Our prosecution was able to prove that each of these men must have known they were smuggling firearms and drugs into the UK.

“This was a sophisticated operation using a UKBA employee who was supposed to be protecting the UK from these offences.

“Their defence that they did not know the real contents of the package was clearly not credible, and was disproved by surveillance, phone evidence, and the amount of drugs and weapons involved.”

Pellet, from Dover, claimed to believe he was transporting a legal “oil-like” substance used as an adulterant.

The trio were extradited back to the UK from France to face trial at Isleworth Crown Court.

All three were charged with conspiracy to smuggle cocaine and heroin, Pellett and Baker with conspiracy to smuggle firearms, and Pellett with misconduct in a public office.

They will be sentenced on Friday (November 6).