Churchill great grandson jailed in Australia

CANBERRA (Reuters) - A great grandson of Winston Churchill was sentenced to three years in an Australian jail on Thursday for his role in a multi-million drug scheme.

Nicholas Jake Barton, 34, pleaded guilty to the drug charges in November. He was arrested in June 2006 at his Sydney apartment following a three-month undercover police investigation.

Police found about 250,000 ecstasy tablets, 26 lbs of MDMA - the powder used to make the drug, as well as drug-making equipment during the raids.

But District Court judge Colin Charteris found Barton had only a "belated" and limited role in the supply of the ecstasy tablets found at a property he had sublet.

"In determining the appropriateness of the sentence, the fact the defendant is descended from a hero of the 20th century does not affect the sentence I must impose," Australian Associated Press reported Charteris as saying at the sentencing.

Barton's sentence was backdated to the time of his arrest and he will be eligible for parole by next February, allowing him to return to England to visit his mother, Arabella Spencer Churchill, who the court was told is suffering pancreatic cancer.

Barton moved to Australia when he was 18, studying marine biology and working for a time in the film industry.

(Reporting by James Grubel)