A Home Office initiative which saw a convicted cocaine dealer from Braintree working with unsuspecting Customs officers has been scrapped.
Enzo Defoe, of Blake Drive, was working at Felixstowe docks with customs while serving a three-year sentence for possession of cocaine with an intent to supply.
But the programme was suspended by port officials after a national newspaper uncovered the initiative in an investigation.
Defoe and other inmates were working shifts at the docks as part of a day-release scheme from nearby Hollesley Bay Prison.
After a special training session, the prisoners including Defoe who was convicted after £1,200 of cocaine was found in his Land Rover were shown how to operate the specialist trucks used inside the port.
A spokesman for the Home Office said the day release programme had now been suspended on request of the port and the inmates will be put on other courses or programmes under the prison's resettlement plan.
Published Wednesday July 21, 2004
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