TELLY hardman Ant Middleton’s brother has been arrested in a £350,000 cocaine bust.
Michael Middleton, 40, was held in a National Crime Agency operation which allegedly saw 7kg of the Class A drug found at a property.
Police said Middleton had driven to Calais in France with another man before heading back to the UK via Folkestone.
The pair then met a third man at a house in Heston, West London, when officers raided it.
The drugs haul was said to be in a rucksack.
Around £2,000 in cash was also found.
Michael is one of former special forces hero Ant’s three brothers.
He lives in the family’s native Portsmouth, Hants — where Ant grew up before moving to France and then later Essex.
The arrest comes as the heartbroken family deals with the death of mum Diana last month from cancer. Dad Peter died in 1985.
Recently Ant, 39, has been seen putting stars including Katie Price and John Fashanu through their paces as the chief instructor on Channel 4’s Celebrity SAS: Who Dares Wins.
He is said to have a close relationship with his brothers and proudly poses with Michael in a snap on his website. Ant declined to comment last night.
Middleton, Andrew Adams, 55, of Felixstowe, Suffolk, and Ervis Hoxha, 31, of Tooting, South London, were all charged with conspiracy to supply Class A drugs.
They were due to appear at Kingston crown court last month but the hearing was postponed until June because of the coronavirus outbreak.
The trio have been denied bail and are being held in custody.
The computer programmer who played chess for Great Britain had a fatal heart attack on New Year’s Eve 1985, aged 36.
Two weeks after the tragedy, five-year-old Ant’s mother replaced his dad with a “bully” who became his stepfather and ruled the family with an iron fist.
Ant said: “Dad was wiped from our lives. The day after he died every photo of him disappeared from the house.
“It was as if he’d never existed. Me and my brothers weren’t even allowed to go to his funeral.”
The family left Portsmouth and moved to the village of Saint-Lo, in northern France.
Ant also told how he saved one of his brother’s lives as a youngster years later.
He was 15 when he stopped suicidal sibling Daniel, 17, from jumping in front of a lorry.
Daniel had recently broken up with a girlfriend and was still upset at their dad’s sudden death ten years earlier.
But quick-thinking Ant prevented another family tragedy when he grabbed Daniel next to a busy road.
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