AN OXFORD teenager is in an Australian jail after admitting smuggling thousands of pounds worth of illegal drugs into the country hidden in a suitcase.

Student Eleanor Taylor, 19, faces a potential life sentence after pleading guilty to smuggling more than 10,000 amphetamine tablets with a street value of £84,000 through Perth International Airport.

A spokesman for the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office confirmed they were working with the teenager's Oxford family.

The beauty school student has been in custody in Australia since she was arrested on April 2 after landing in Perth on a flight from London, via Amsterdam and Johannesburg.

A joint statement by Australian Federal Police and Australian Customs said officers searched Taylor's suitcase after an X-ray check found 'anomalies' in her luggage.

Officers discovered the tablets hidden inside lining within the suitcase.

Taylor pleaded guilty to smuggling the drugs at Perth Magistrates' Court via a video link from prison. She previously denied the charge at an earlier hearing on April 8.

Prosecutors said she was smuggling drugs hidden in the lining of her black suitcase.

Police in Australia would not confirm Taylor's Oxford address or the beauty school at which she was studying.

A spokesman for Oxford and Cherwell Valley College said Taylor applied for a beauty therapy course at its Oxford campus two years ago, but was not successful.

A tutor at Abingdon & Witney College's beauty school said she had not been a student at the Witney campus, but a spokesman refused to say whether or not she had ever attended its Abingdon campus.

Dr Allan Evans, of the Oxford International College of Beauty, in Witney said she was not a student there.