A Conservative MP today described the terrifying moment he was held at gunpoint and forced to eat coffee whitener to persuade a group of excitable Colombian soldiers that he was not a drugs trafficker.

Michael Fabricant, who represents the Staffordshire consitutuency of Lichfield and Burntwood, was on a South American trekking holiday with a friend last week when he was stopped by the men toting M16 rifles.

The soldiers searched through their bags and found an unlabelled jar of Coffee Mate - which Mr Fabricant had packed because he did not want to risk drinking fresh milk. Unfortunately, the soldiers thought it was cocaine - sometimes dubbed 'Colombian marching powder'.

“It took some explanation, as I don’t speak more than two or three words in Spanish, for them to accept it was Coffee Mate," the MP, now safely back in Westminster, said today.

“They didn’t want to taste it as pure cocaine is fairly poisonous so I had to eat several mouthfuls in front of them, with guns aimed at me, until they could see that it had no ill effect - except afterwards I felt as sick as a dog.”

Mr Fabricant, 58, who is best known around Westminster for his shock of blond hair, said that he would bear the experience in mind for the future: “I would not wish to unnecessarily cause the risk of a by-election."

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