Accused of smuggling £4.5million of cocaine, he had been threatened with up to 30 years in prison.

But the aristocrat’s hopes of walking free from a Kenyan courtroom were dashed yesterday when a magistrate refused to clear him – despite prosecutors dropping the case.

Mr Marrian, 33, grandson of the late Earl of Cawdor, sank his head in his hands as Derrick Koto announced his ruling.

The Briton was arrested in 2016 after 100kg of cocaine in black plastic sacks was found on a container ship in Mombasa, Kenya – hidden among bags of brown sugar addressed to his trading company.

Mr Marrian spent two weeks in prison while a record £500,000 bail bond was raised. 

But the Mail last week revealed that Kenyan prosecutors had decided to abandon their case and were asking for it to be formally dismissed by the courts.

The businessman’s acquittal was said to be a mere formality – but Mr Koto claimed the timing of the application to end the case was ‘suspicious, an abuse of powers and did not serve the public interest’.

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