Prosecutors told Portsmouth Crown Court on Friday that Angolan-born Teresa Matos used her job aboard the HMS Manchester to try to sneak 8 kilograms of cocaine into the UK.

The 37-year-old picked up the drugs while the ship was docked in the Colombian port city of Cartagena in July. At the time, the ship was carrying members of Britain's Serious and Organized Crime Agency, which fights drug trafficking.

The cocaine was found hidden in the lining of Matos' clothes in her locker aboard the destroyer when it arrived in the southern England port city of Plymouth the following month.