A FORMER rugby player was jailed after trying to smuggle heroin into the UK hidden in boxes of bacon.
Philip Tasker, a self-employed gardener, of Saunders Street, Southport, was yesterday sentenced to 18 years imprisonment for his role in smuggling Class A drugs with an estimated street value of £3m.
Customs officers believe the former Southport rugby club prop and his accomplice, Darren Hunter, could have flooded Merseyside with the heroin.
The 43-year-old was stopped in Dover driving a white Citroen van on October 17 last year.
Tasker told officers he went to Belgium to deliver bacon and was bringing “dodgy” bacon back.
He had no paperwork for the load, so officials searched the van, where they found 18 bacon boxes containing black taped packages of heroin. Tasker denied all knowledge of the drugs.
He said he had received a telephone call from a “Mr Davies”, who said he was from a Southport- based bacon company, who asked him if he was able to take a load abroad and then bring a load back.
