A BEXLEY man is one of three UK nationals accused of involvement in Ireland's biggest ever offshore seizure of drugs.

The plot went wrong when the men's boat sank in heavy seas off the Irish coast and one of them had to be rescued by the Irish coastguard.

Cork Circuit Criminal Court has heard how the boat's petrol engines had been filled with diesel by mistake.

Joe Daley, aged 41, of Carrisbrooke Avenue, Bexley, and his co-defendants Perrie Wharrie, aged 47, from Loughton, Essex, and Martin Wanden, aged 44, of no fixed address, each deny three charges of possession of cocaine with the purpose of sale or supply and possession of cocaine with a value of more than £10,000.

The court was told the Gardai (Irish police) had recovered packages of cocaine worth more than £350m from the sea off West Cork after the boat sank.

The drug smuggling operation was discovered when one of the alleged smugglers, still soaking wet, knocked on the door of a nearby smallholding, to say a boat with three men in it had just sunk.

Despite the man's pleas, the farmer called a relative who alerted the coastguard.

A lifeboat rescue was mounted and Wanden was discovered floating semi-conscious in the water, surrounded by packages of drugs.

Altogether 62 bales of high purity cocaine were recovered.

The coastguard alerted the police, who also recovered a waterproof container on the rocks, which contained a mobile phone, a satellite phone, a two-way radio, torch and a knife.

Prosecutor Tom Creed said an enormous logistical effort had been involved in the operation, including the purchase of three jeeps, a hired saloon car, two rigid inflatable boats, the renting of two West Cork properties, the use of Global Positioning Satellite systems and a rendezvous with a larger drugs catamaran moored 30 miles off-shore.

The state claims the catamaran had brought the drugs across the Atlantic from the Caribbean, to be sold in Ireland.

The trial continues.