A FORMER fitness boss and champion bodybuilder told a court yesterday of his horror at discovering that a trailer he had driven across country was packed with illegally-imported drugs.

Martin Yates-Brown, who owned Classic World of Fitness gyms in Darlington, Newton Aycliffe, Bishop Auckland and Crook, was giving evidence at Teesside Crown Court against six men he has admitted conspiring with to supply cannabis.

Yates-Brown, a bodybuilder who once competed with movie star Arnold Schwarzenegger, told the jury he became involved in the scam because he thought the drug would soon be legalised.

Prosecutor Jennifer Kershaw told the court that two men - Colin Dunn and Raymond Bell - had been bringing "hundreds of kilograms of cannabis" into the UK from Holland concealed in trailers.

She claimed they approached Yates-Brown and asked him to provide contacts who could sell the drugs for them.

"The whole purpose of the exercise was to make money," she told the court.

"Mr Brown agreed to become involved and he joined in the conspiracy. Brown was supposed to take responsibility for ensuring payment.

"He has pleaded guilty to conspiracy with these defendants and others to supply cannabis. He has yet to be sentenced."

Yates-Brown, who also co-owned seven gyms in the North-West with his brother, claimed Dunn had approached him in 1998.

"He wanted me to provide him with contacts," said Yates-Brown.

"He was very persuasive in saying that he thought cannabis would be legalised in two years and that it was an opportunity to make money from the loads that were coming in at the moment before it became legalised."

Yates-Brown said he refused to take part in the deal initially, but did agree to buy some trailers at a bargain price.

He said he travelled to Todmorden, North Yorkshire, with Dunn and Tansey, then the manager of his Darlington gym, to collect a trailer.

When they got it back to Darlington, he alleged that Dunn opened up a secret compartment.

"Then to my surprise, and because I'd driven it, my horror if you like, there was a shipment of cannabis in there," said Yates-Brown. "It was full. I didn't really know what to do. I was flabbergasted."

He told the jury that Dunn nagged him until he agreed to contact John Churchill, the boyfriend of one of his staff, who he knew was a "small-time drug dealer in cannabis".

John Tansey, 35, of Scira Court, Darlington, Colin Dunn, 62, of Hollywood Avenue, Gosforth, Newcastle, and Raymond Bell, 57, of Eskdale Terrace, Whitley Bay, are charged with four counts of conspiracy to supply cannabis resin.

Clive Jefferson (also known as Aitken), 35, of Woodside Avenue, Cockermouth, Cumbria, John Churchill, 29, of Bellwood Street, Glasgow and Charles Hardie, 44, of Avondale Crescent, Armidale, Scotland, are charged with two counts of conspiracy to supply cannabis resin.

Wayne Johns, 31, of Dunrobin Close, Darlington, is charged with possession with intent to supply cannabis resin. All five men deny the charges.

The case continues.