TWO detectives and a retired police officer have been arrested and are due to appear in court over alleged links to a drugs baron.

Detective Sergeant Ian Weedon, Detective Constable Paul Hardy and retired Detective Sergeant James McSorley were arrested yesterday and charged with misconduct in a public office.

Det Sgt Weedon, 45, was suspended from the force in 1997, following the launch of Operation Teak - an inquiry into alleged links between members of Cleveland Police and Middlesbrough drugs baron Brian Charrington.

Charrington, 44, is in Spain awaiting extradition to France, where he was sentenced in his absence to two years in prison for masterminding an attempt to smuggle more than 1,600kgs of cannabis into Boulogne.

He is also wanted in Germany on drugs-related matters.

Det Con Hardy, 41, who was for a time seconded to the National Crime Squad, has now also been suspended by Cleveland Police.

All three are to appear before Teesside Magistrates tomorrow.

A Cleveland Police spokes-man said: "Following a protracted investigation, supervised by the Police Complaints Authority, three people have been arrested and charged with offences of misconduct in a public office.

"Two are serving police officers and one, a retired police officer from Cleveland Police. And as a result of the charges it has been necessary to suspend one of the officers."

The Charrington affair has dogged Cleveland Police for almost a decade.

The fabulously wealthy second-hand car dealer first came to the attention of the authorities in 1989.

Although he only had convictions for burglary and theft, police and Customs officers were tipped off that he was one of Britain's biggest drug barons, with direct links to the Colombian cocaine cartels.

Playboy Charrington was said to have paid for one of his two private planes with bundles of cash stuffed into a plastic bag. He also owned a Bentley, a Rolls-Royce and a yacht.

Police and customs officials began working flat out to catch him and, in 1992, raided a warehouse in Stoke-on-Trent where they found £150m of cocaine hidden inside lead ingots.

Customs arrested Charrington at Teesside Airport and searched the loft of his home in Nunthorpe, Middlesbrough, where they found £2m in cash and traces of drugs, along with details of multi-million payments to a South American businessman.

But then detectives dropped a bombshell - the drug-dealing Mr Big had, since 1989, been a police informant and if the prosecution went ahead, they would have to give evidence for the defence.

The prosecution collapsed in 1993, and the following year Operation Mantis was set up into Cleveland Police's handling of the Charrington debacle.

Privately, Customs officers were seething over the affair, believing Charrington had used his association with the police as an insurance policy.

The kingpin of the drugs world was in a position to finger some of the key players in the trade, but had delivered only low-level drug dealers.

The Mantis investigation, carried out by officers from Thames Valley, reported back in 1998 and announced no criminal charges would be brought against the officers involved.

But Operation Teak, supervised by the Police Complaints Authority, was set up in the wake of Mantis to investigate four officers.

After the collapse of the trial, Charrington left for Spain where he lives in a luxurious, but heavily-fortified villa.