A professional footballer who imported £600,000 worth of cannabis from Thailand to the UK has been jailed for four years.

Jay Emmanuel-Thomas, 34, orchestrated the smuggling of a 60kg (132lb) drugs haul that was found at London Stansted Airport, Essex, on 2 September.

He was sacked by Scottish club Greenock Morton after being arrested, having previously played for Arsenal, Aberdeen and England at youth level.

"It is through your own actions you will no longer be known as a professional footballer; you will be known as a criminal," Judge Alexander Mills told him at Chelmsford Crown Court.

"A professional footballer who threw it all away."

Emmanuel-Thomas recruited his girlfriend, Yasmin Piotrowska, 33, and her 28-year-old friend Rosie Rowland, to smuggle the Class B drug into the UK.

Border Force officers at the airport found vacuum-packed cannabis stored across four suitcases they transported from Bangkok to Essex.

Mobile phone analysis linked Emmanuel-Thomas to the discovery, with him texting Miss Piotrowska to "delete everything from our chat if you can" when she was stopped and searched.

He then travelled to Stratford, east London, on 5 September and replaced his own mobile phone, prosecutor David Josse KC said.

Emmanuel-Thomas was arrested at his home in Cardwell Road, in Gourock near Glasgow, Scotland, on 18 September.

Mr Josse said he used his "influence as a professional footballer" to trick the women, also offering them an all expenses paid trip to Thailand and £2,500 in cash.

Charges against Ms Piotrowska and Ms Rowland were dropped after it emerged they thought they were transporting gold, a previous hearing was told.

But Emmanuel-Thomas was to be paid £5,000 by an unknown person for a successful operation, said Mr Josse.

'Catastrophic error'

The court was read a handwritten letter penned by the footballer to Judge Mills.

In it, he wrote: "This past year has been the most harmful and eye-opening of my life.

"At times it has been unbearable."

He said seeing his daughter visit him in prison was one of the toughest moments of his life.

"Watching her walk into the space broke me," he added. "I never wanted her to see me in that light."

His barrister, Alex Rose, said he was tempted into crime during "significant financial hard times" when out of contract.

Referencing the footballer's arrest, he said: "When he had that knock on the door and realised it was the police and he was going to be arrested, he realised his whole world was falling in - his career as a footballer was over.

"His football career is finished. That is something he has brought entirely on himself, but it is a devastating blow for somebody who had such promise."

Mr Rose said Emmanuel-Thomas, who grew up in London and also played for Queens Park Rangers and MK Dons, struggled with moving to Scotland to play football.

"That, I am afraid, led to the temptation in this case," he added.

"He succumbed to temptation and a catastrophic error of judgement."