The man has been charged with two counts of possessing class A drugs with intent to supply, but police have not yet recovered the alleged goods.

Police in Essex have been live-tweeting their patient wait and will return to court today to request a further custody extension.

They wrote in one tweet: “Male doesn’t seem to understand that eventually he will need / have to go.”

They added that the man was being seen daily by doctors and was under constant watch out of concern for his health, which was so far “fine”.