THE charmed life of an international drugs baron and supergrass from the North-East is over.

Brian Charrington, 46, has been jailed for seven years in Frankfurt, Germany, for conspiring to fraudulently evade the prohibition on the importation of cocaine.

After doing time in Germany, the one time second hand car dealer from Middlesbrough, will be sent to France, where he was jailed for two years in his absence after 650 kilos of hashish were found on a yacht in the English Channel, in 1995.

An early attempt to bring Charrington to trial in Manchester over a drugs bust sensationally failed in 1993.

After the collapse of the case, for his part in the shipment of £150m of cocaine, Britain's security forces - who admitted he was their "supergrass" on Colombian cartels - re-homed him in Australia, where his visa was soon revoked.

From there he went to Spain, to the Costa Blanca resort of Calpe ,and holed up in a fortified villa.

He laundered millions of pounds in drug money and brought hashish from Morocco across the border, selling it on.

He escaped jail again in 1999 when a trial at Bristol Crown Court collapsed because it was found customs officers had illegally boarded a boat carrying four tons of hashish worth £80m.

Last year, a case involving him, two suspended detectives and a former detective, collapsed with a judge at Leeds Crown Court refusing to take phone tap evidence.

Charrington appeared at Leeds after he was arrested by armed police near Exeter when he tried to sneak back into Britain for a family visit.

His drugs empire brought him fabulous wealth and direct links with Columbian cocaine cartels and underground business dealings across Germany, France, Spain, Austria, Israel and continental Europe.

Appearing before a court in Frankfurt this week, Charrington was jailed for seven years, for conspiracy, after first denying the charge, then changing his plea to guilty.

His son Brian Jnr is already serving seven years and three months for the same offence after he was convicted in February 2000.

Charrington Snr was extradited to Germany after a warrant was issued by Bow Street Magistrates, London, following on from his earlier appearance at Leeds Crown Court.

German police had netted Charrington Jnr and another man leaving a warehouse in Frankfurt with a suitcase filled with drugs.

Phone call intercepts in Germany identified Brian Charrington's voice and linked him to the drugs plot which he had helped mastermind.