An elderly couple accused of trying to smuggle £1 million of cocaine into Europe on a luxury Caribbean cruise broke down in tears today as they insisted they had been betrayed by “friends” at the start of their trial.

Retired chef Roger Clarke, 72, and his ex-secretary wife Sue, 71, were marched into a courtroom in Lisbon in handcuffs by police to speak for the first time in public about the events leading up to their December 4 2018 arrests on board the MC Marco Polo.

Roger, who looked frailer and much thinner after more than nine months in a remand prison in the Portuguese capital, insisted he had no idea nine kilos of cocaine were hidden in the linings of four suitcases he agreed to pick up on the paradise island of St Lucia.

He told the three judges set to decide the fate of the elderly couple, who are on trial for a crime of drugs trafficking punishable under Portuguese law by four to 12 years in prison: “Some people we knew were aware we were occasionally going on Caribbean cruises and asked me to negotiate to buy exotic fruit for shipment back to the UK.