A lorry driver tried to bring cocaine and heroin with a street value of almost £7 million into the UK hidden in a consignment of vegetable baskets, a jury was told.

Michael Briggs attempted to smuggle the drugs past customs officers at Dover after they were loaded on to the lorry abroad, Canterbury Crown Court heard.

Anthony Leonard QC, prosecuting, said Carl Martin, Ian Kirton and Russell Crisp "amassed the drugs" on the Continent before meeting Briggs, who was delivering the baskets from northern Italy to Northampton.

Briggs, 52, formerly of Low Moor, Bradford, whose address was given as Brough Road, Skegness, Lincolnshire; Martin, 29, of Clervaux Court, Scholemoor, Bradford; Crisp, 38, of Highgate Road, Clayton Heights, Bradford; and Kirton, 41, of Kitson Hill Road, Mirfield, all deny smuggling charges.

They are each charged with one count of smuggling 54.8 kilograms of pure heroin and one count of smuggling 5.75 kilograms of pure cocaine into the UK in October last year.

Mr Leonard said the weight of the drugs seized by customs in their impure form amounted to 111kgs of heroin and 8.19kgs of cocaine. He said: "If those drugs reached the street they would have had an approximate sale value of £6.7 million.

"Briggs was driving the lorry and routed his return from Italy to link up with the other three defendants who were responsible for getting the cocaine and heroin on the trailer."

He said Martin, Kirton and Crisp had made trips to Amsterdam in the months before the alleged smuggling operation, by plane from Leeds-Bradford and car.

"While the Crown say it is Briggs that provided the means ... it was the job of the others to arrange for the drugs to be amassed, probably in Holland, and then to take them to a rendezvous with Briggs," he said. "Crisp, Martin and Kirton were frequent travellers to the Continent and in particular Amsterdam, giving them the opportunity to plan the importation."

The trial continues.