A FORMER body-building champion broke down in court yesterday, saying he despised himself for bragging that he could supply ten kilos of cocaine.

Martin Yates-Brown was recruited by a drug gang and was secretly taped boasting about the £250,000 drug deal to an undercover policeman, the court heard.

Yates-Brown, who owned four Classic World of Fitness gyms, in Darlington, Newton Aycliffe, Bishop Auckland and Crook, County Durham, was giving evidence at Teesside Crown Court.

He is the chief prosecution witness against a group of men he says he conspired with to supply cannabis. Yates-Brown, from Darlington, said he contacted gym owners in the North of England and Scotland in a search to boost cannabis sales.

Then, Customs and Excise investigators swooped on an industrial unit in Blaydon, near Gateshead, seizing 210 kilos smuggled by sea from Holland. The gang had also stored cannabis in a lock-up in Todmorden, Yorkshire, the court has heard.

Yates-Brown agreed to turn Queen's Evidence after he was charged with six others, the court was told. He will be sentenced later for conspiracy to supply drugs, said Jill Kershaw, QC, prosecuting.

Pleading not guilty to conspiracy to supply drugs are Raymond Bell, 57, of Eskdale Terrace, Whitley Bay, North Tyneside; Colin Dunn, 62, of Hollywood Avenue, Gosforth, Newcastle; John Tansey, 35, of Scira Court, Darlington; John Churchill, 29, of Bellwood Street, Glasgow; Charles Hardie, 44, of Arma-dale, Scotland; and Clive Jefferson, 34, of Woodside Avenue, Cockermouth, Cumbria. Wayne Johns, 21 of Dunrobin Close, Darlington, pleads not guilty to possession with intent to supply. The trial continues