A DRUGS courier said he was blackmailed into carrying cocaine by two strangers, a court heard yesterday.

Gary McLoughlin was caught with a holdall full of cocaine at Darlington railway station as he left a train from London.

Teesside Crown Court heard that the drug was 71 per cent pure and worth hundreds of thousands of pounds on the streets

McLoughlin, 37, a crane driver working in London, said he was forced to carry it by two strangers who showed him a photo of his girlfriend with their 18-month-old son.

While on bail, so the drug could be analysed, McLoughlin found a cow's tongue nailed to his garden shed with a note saying "keep it shut".

McLoughlin told the court: "I was absolutely petrified, especially after I found the tongue, but I feared for my family."

He was arrested at Darlington railway station by detectives who asked him: "Have you got any drugs?" He replied yes and showed them a kilo of cocaine wrapped in newspaper in his holdall.

McLoughlin of Newlands Avenue, Norton, near Stockton, was found guilty of possession of a Class A drug with intent to supply on December 19 and was jailed for ten years.