A 55-year-old who brought thousands of dollars worth of drugs into the Island in his stomach was jailed for four years yesterday.

Neilson Keith Burgess pleaded guilty at Magistrates' Court to importing crack cocaine and cannabis resin with a street value of $4,550 and $4,090, respectively, on January 3.

Crown counsel Larissa Burgess said he was questioned by customs officers after landing at L.F. Wade International Airport on a Miami flight returning to Bermuda from Jamaica.

She said Burgess was told officers had information that he was carrying controlled drugs in his stomach. "The defendant's face immediately started to twitch," she said, adding that he told the officers he had "two pellets of gum and coke". Ms Burgess said he added: "I was just trying to make a little cash."

Burgess, a self-employed painter, was taken to King Edward VII Memorial Hospital, where an X-ray showed foreign objects in his stomach. He was admitted to the Emergency Department and over the next few days excreted 11 cylindrical pellets.

Tests revealed that eight of the pellets contained a total of 40.93 grams of cannabis resin. Three pellets held a total of 14.74 grams of crack cocaine.

Kenrick James, mitigating, said Burgess, of St. David's Road, was a first-time offender who was separated from his wife and had a 17-year-old daughter in school to support.

"He recognises the seriousness of his offences and he's also stated that he had some challenges in the past with some substances, which he's tried to deal with.

"He realises now that he needs help and he's willing to submit himself to any assistance that the society or the community can afford him."

Senior Magistrate Archibald Warner refused a request for a social inquiry report and said: "This is simply a callous importation of serious drugs for money."

He said Burgess could have got ten years but his early guilty plea and the fact that he had no previous offences at his age went in his favour. He sentenced him to four years in jail for both importation offences, to run concurrently.

The Crown offered no evidence on two counts of possession with intent to supply the drugs, which Burgess had denied.