A YACHTSWOMAN nicknamed the "Cocaine Queen of the Caribbean" has been jailed for 24 years for helping smuggle a £100m drugs consignment into Britain through the Isle of Wight.

Julie Paterson and her lover headed an international consortium who spent months plotting the sophisticated operation from the West Indies to the Island's idyllic Orchard Bay.

But just when success seemed assured, their visions of huge wealth foundered in a near comic farce of stormy weather and mechanical failure.

Trying not to panic, 46-year-old Paterson, partner-in-crime Michael Tyrrell, 55, and various accomplices spent hours staggering along a treacherous cliff-top path at night with heavy armfuls of their precious cargo.

Then, just when they thought things could not get any worse, customs men caught the seven-strong gang red-handed.

Bale upon bale of the narcotic, bound for towns and cities across the country, were seized, London's Snaresbrook Crown Court heard.

So too, was an inflatable dinghy for inshore work, and the ocean-going yacht that brought the 396kg haul.

However, it was not until officers weighed the drugs back at base that they realised they had intercepted the largest single British cocaine importation to date.

Antiguan resident Paterson had relied on a "love is blind" defence.

Despite hosting a pivotal planning summit at her home, and having a handbag bulging with incriminating documents when arrested, she claimed she simply followed orders from the man who owned her heart, and never once suspected anything was amiss.

But she showed no reaction as the five-man, seven-woman jury convicted her of one count of smuggling in October 2000.

Also convicted was US national Frederic Fillingham, 42, from Fort Lauderdale, Florida, who got 18 years.

Passing sentence, Judge Timothy King told the pair: "You and others like you have much to answer for. Drug abuse is a scourge in a decent and civilised society, and costs civilised society many billions of pounds."

Paterson's sentence was just under the 26 years given to Tyrrell earlier this year and is thought to be one of the longest passed on a woman drug smuggler in Britain.

Assistant chief investigation officer for Customs and Excise Jim Fitzpatrick said: "This gang tried to smuggle a huge quantity of cocaine into the UK and have received jail terms that reflect the seriousness of their crimes.

"We will now ensure that we go after every penny we can identify that has been made from their drugs trafficking."

Tyrrell bought the ideal smuggler's headquarters - a luxurious seafront development at Orchard Bay - for £657,000.

Apart from boasting a private beach, it was next door to the Island's smuggling museum, and 150 years earlier had been used as a base in the battle against smugglers.

Customs learned something was afoot in July 2000, and a joint investigation - Operation Eyefull - was launched with the National Crime Squad.

Tyrrell and Paterson were subsequently kept under close surveillance whenever they were in the UK, and tailed as they bought a wide range of equipment for the operation.

Yesterday's sentences bring the jail term total passed on the gang members to 141 years.