A drugs mule caught smuggling almost £150,000 of cocaine into the UK has finally been jailed – more than a decade after she should have been arrested for skipping her original court date.

Tanya Lobo was just 19 when customs officers caught her with the equivalent of almost 4kg of pure cocaine at Gatwick airport, following a trip to Tobago in June 2001.

But despite spending the next ten years paying her taxes, national insurance and living in the same area of Croydon, south London, Lobo was only picked up by police earlier this year after spending more than a third of her life at large.

She was sentenced to just seven days in jail for skipping her hearing in September 2001, and was handed a three year sentence for importing the drugs at Croydon Crown Court.

The 30-year-old broke down in the dock as she talked about her trip to the Caribbean, which she decided to make following the shock death of her childhood sweetheart and boyfriend of six years, Jonathan Charles, in April 2001.

Lobo said a stranger called Deyshaun got in touch soon after the death offering her a cheap plane ticket to Tobago by way of sympathy.

She said: “He apologised, said he understood what I was going through.

“He said this lady couldn’t go because her child was ill – said I could get it cheaply.

“I was working, I had always been working so I had the money. I spoke to my family, they agreed I should go away and try to get my head straight.”

Lobo told the court she met a taxi driver called Dom at Tobago airport, who found her a beachside hotel and took her on several trips into town and to the local shops over the course of her week-long stay.

But her trip took a turn for the sinister when she returned from a snorkelling expedition on her last day to find her suitcase had been padlocked shut, and an extra padlocked case dumped on her bed.

After tracking down Dom she was told he had padlocked her luggage for safety, and had put some alcohol and souvenirs in the second case to bring back to the UK.

She told the court she pressured him for more details and he revealed there was cannabis in the bag, but claimed it was just ‘percy’ – for personal use – and would not get her into any trouble.

It was only after Dom reminded her of her cheap ticket that she realised he obviously knew Deyshaun and her stay at the hotel had been pre-planned, but said she was too scared to do anything as she was alone in a foreign country.

She said: “I was young and I was naïve and I was stupid, and I hold my hands up to that.

“In the worst case I thought I was going to have a fine for too much alcohol being brought back.”

She said Dom only gave her the keys to the padlocks once her bags had been sent down to the plane’s hold.

The court heard Lobo asked for a private chat with customs officers at Gatwick when she realised they were going to open up her bag, saying she thought there might be drugs in there.

UK Border Agency agent Keith Funnel, who stopped Lobo at the airport, told the court the drugs were amateurishly concealed in silver bags wrapped inside towels in one of the cases.

Sarah Lindop, defending, told the court Lobo had in fact arrived at court for her original hearing in 2001, but decided to go home after she was unable to find her barrister.

She said: “She has remained working in the local area, she’s not tried to hide.

“She’s been paying tax, she’s been paying National Insurance, she’s been working for Talk Talk and for the last 18 months has been working for an insurance company.

“She has been traceable.”

“She tells me that she thought of going to the police station a couple of times and then she just chickened out through fear.”

Judge Ruth Downing, sentencing, jailed Lobo for three years after telling her she should have realised something was “seriously amiss” with the padlocked bags.

She told Lobo if she had known cocaine was in her bags when she smuggled it in she could have expected an eight year sentence.

She said: “There’s no such thing as a free lunch, and she must have realised that there’s no such thing as a free trip or a cheap trip to Tobago.”

Judge Downing said Lobo should have refused to take the padlocked cases, but conceded as she was with a near-stranger in a foreign country she probably felt intimidated.

She said Lobo’s failure to hand herself in for ten years made “no difference” to her sentence, as she had simply postponed the date she would begin her time in jail.

She said: "Many women in your position find themselves going away for substantial periods of time because they did the same as you.

"They have the courage and good sense to come to court and have the matter dealt with."