Three boxes allegedly used to import $300,000 worth of cocaine were destroyed by mould in the Police station where they were stored as evidence.

The news was revealed yesterday to a Supreme Court jury hearing the trial of Andre Phillip Hill, 53, and Raynol Shane Todd, 51, who are accused of conspiring to import the drugs.

The cocaine was discovered by a Customs Officer on December 24 2004, who had been alerted to the suspicious packages by staff at Federal Express where they were delivered from Trinidad and Tobago.

According to the case for the prosecution, Hill went to the Federal Express office in Serpentine Road, Pembroke that day to collect the boxes. However, the Customs Officer had already alerted Police to the discovery, and Hill was arrested as he left the office with the boxes.

He allegedly told the officers that the packages were for Todd, who was waiting in the nearby Belco parking lot. Police found him there in a car and arrested him.

The jury has previously heard evidence from a forensics officer, Detective Constable Jewel Hayward, who photographed the three boxes containing the cocaine powder after they were seized by the Police.

That officer told the court only the negatives were available because a mould problem at the Police station where they were stored in October 2006 had destroyed the evidence.

Yesterday, Detective Constable Windol Thorpe, who was at the scene when Hill and Todd were arrested, said the three boxes Hill was carrying were secured as evidence and handed over to Det Con Hayward that same day.

"My information is that those boxes have been destroyed as a result of some problems at the Forensic Support Unit office in Southside with regards to mould," he said.

The case continues.