NEWENT takeaway worker Ripon Miah was jailed with his cousin after being caught with £47,000 worth of heroin.

The men were stopped on the M5 near Cheltenham with the drug hidden inside a cushion on the back seat.

Ripon, 31, of Broad Street, Newent, received a four-year term. His cousin Mohammed Dilu Miah, 30, of Gloucester, who was driving the car, was sentenced to three years.

Mohammed had admitted possessing the eight per cent purity heroin, weighing almost a kilo, with intent to supply.

His cousin denied the offence and claimed he did not know anything about the drug being in the car but he was convicted by a jury after a two-day trial.

Jailing the two men, Judge Jamie Tabor QC said Ripon had to have a longer sentence because, unlike his cousin, he got no discount for pleading guilty.

Prosecutor Nicholas Gerasimidis said Mohammed's red Mitsibushi car was stopped on the M5 near Cheltenham on December 20 last year.

A purple cushion on the rear off side seat was found to contain two bags of brown powder weighing just under a kilo, he said.

The drug had just been collected by the cousins from Sheffield and was ready for street deals in Gloucester, said Mr Gerasimidis.

ey had almost a kilo of heroin which, at street sale values, would be worth £47,000," he said.

Ripon Miah, who worked at Newent Tandoori, refused to comment when interviewed but later denied any knowledge of or control over the drugs.

Mr Gerasimidis told the jury that there had been phone calls made between the car and a man called Khan in Sheffield who the prosecution alleged was involved in the deal.

It was inconceivable, he said, that Ripon would have been unaware of the calls.

Sanjeev Sharma, for Mohammed Miah, said he pleaded guilty on the basis he was a courier on a one-off drug fetching trip.

Passing sentence, the judge said: "I don't know what led you to fall to temptation in this way. It may be you were given some money to clear a debt but it just shows how easily people can fall into the trap that you have and act on behalf of wicked men, doing their dirty deeds for them."

Detective Inspector Neil Carpenter, of Gloucestershire Constabulary's Serious and Organised Crime Unit, said after the hearing: "This forms part of a wider investigation into organised crime and recently we have seized and prevented heroin with a street value of nearly £1.5 million reaching the streets of Gloucestershire."