TWO brothers accused of being part of a multimillion-pound cocaine smuggling racket are "guilty of naivety" rather than criminal activity, a court heard.

Stephen and Martin Neil, from Bournemouth Road in Poole, are accused of having helped bring half a tonne's worth of the banned substance from Colombia into the UK on a private jet when they were searched by border staff at Farnborough Airport in Hampshire on January 29 this year.

The pair, said to be jobbing tradesmen living modest lifestyles, deny fraudulent evasion of a prohibition in relation to a class A controlled drug between October 30 and January 30.

They are on trial at Woolwich Crown Court in London alongside Italian national Alessandro Iembo, 28, and Spaniards Victor Franco-Lorenzo, 40, and Jose Ramon Miguelez-Botas, 56, who are charged with the same offence.

Summing up the Neil brothers' defence cases, lawyers for the pair told jurors they had been "deceived", believing they had been sent to the South American country to help an associate with charity work.

The younger brother, Martin, 49, had initially travelled to Bogota in December 2017 with Iembo and Franco-Lorenzo for what he thought was a charity meeting, only for them to return a few days later when the meetings were "cancelled", the court heard.

Alphege Bell, defending builder Martin Neil, said another trip was set up for the following month, again complete with private jet and paid expenses, in which Martin's older brother was also recruited.

It was on the return leg of this journey that border staff discovered cocaine.

Mr Bell said: "He's naive. He has got sucked in - duped.

"In that vulnerable, naive state, he's been fed a lie. Maybe he was a bit seduced?

"If someone offered us an all-expenses paid trip on a private jet, some of us may be seduced too.

"He wanted another English speaker to share the experience (the second flight to Bogota), and it is only in these circumstances that his brother gets involved.

"No doubt this is something that weighs with him, that his naivety and his gullibility has had consequences for his brother."

Jurors heard the drugs - some 513 blocks wrapped in brown paper and weighing about a kilo each - were secreted in 15 suitcases stowed on board the private jet and opened by Border Force officials at Farnborough.

William Ryan, defending 53-year-old bricklayer Stephen Neil, said there was little evidence against his client, adding that he was only involved in the second trip to Colombia and not the original.

It is not known whether illegal goods were brought into the UK on the December flight because the luggage was not stopped by border staff.

Mr Ryan said: "It was a very simple proposition - you have a free trip and it is a nice trip.

"He, so we suggest, is guilty of one thing - that's being gullible.

"He's got a very old-fashioned lifestyle on very little outgoings. He doesn't even own a smartphone."

The court heard the older brother initially lied about why he was in Bogota because he "felt guilty about accepting a freebie from a charity".

The Neil brothers, Iembo, of Richmond Chambers in Bournemouth, Franco-Lorenzo, of Suffolk Road in Bournemouth, and Miguelez-Botas, of Valladolid in Spain, all deny the charges in the trial, which began on July 30.

The five women and seven men on the jury were sent out to consider their verdicts yesterday afternoon.