A ROBBER and drug runner has been jailed for six years after he was caught driving a car loaded with more than 5,000 ecstasy tablets.

When Neville Lewis was caught with the drugs he was on licence, having been freed from prison after serving just over half of a 12-year sentence for his part in a robbery at the King's Arms, Trowbridge, when baseball bats and CS gas were used and of a post office van in Bristol.

Swindon Crown Court heard police had tracked him from an address in Bristol and watched as he met someone in a car park in Berkshire before heading back west on the M4.

Colin Meeke, prosecuting, said officers pulled over the Peugeot he was driving near Swindon, and found a carrier bag in the passenger footwell.

"In the bag was a sturdier plastic bag which contained a number of tablets which turned out to contain MDMA, which is more commonly known as ecstasy," he said.

"From an average weight of the tablets it was calculated there were 5,060 in the bag. It was thought there were too many to count them. When he was questioned he exercised his right to silence but at his first appearance in the crown court he pleaded guilty to possession with intent to supply."

He said it was accepted by the Crown that Lewis, 35, of no fixed address, was a courier delivering the drugs, which were worth more than £10,000, for a modest payment of a few hundred pounds.

The court was told Lewis had been jailed for 12 years in 1993 for his previous offences office.

Peter Grey, defending, said his client had made great progress in prison and when he was freed he had worked as a fitness trainer.

But he said Lewis had found money tight and foolishly agreed to make the trip, not knowing what the drug was.

Sentencing him to three years for the drugs offence and ordering him to serve another three years of the original sentence, Judge Mark Dyer said: "There are great elements of sadness to this case.

"There can be few prisoners who have come out described as a likeable young man who is keen to better himself."