Durham Tees Valley Airport cigarette smuggler given final warning
12.01.08
A cigarette smuggler has been told he will be jailed if he ever tries again to bring large amounts of tobacco into the UK after he was caught nine times in eighteen months.
Teesside Crown Court was told this week that the jobless 38-year-old Christopher Kellett, from Darlington, had received eight warnings from customs officials about duty evasion before was finally arrested last summer. He made three overseas trips in five months and brought back a total of 64,000 cigarettes and 30 kilos of hand-rolling tobacco, trying to evade payable duty amounting to more than £11,650 with his hauls.
Adrian Strong, prosecuting, told the court that between May 2004 and December 2006, Kellett had been stopped by airport officials six times. On each occasion, his tobacco was either confiscated or abandoned and Mr. Kellett was warned about the amount he could bring into the country.
But on June 8, he was arrested after trying to smuggle 20,000 cigarettes and 12kg of rolling tobacco through Durham Tees Valley Airport from Ibiza. After being stopped, he told investigators he bought cartons of cigarettes for about £17 and hoped to sell them for £35.
Kieran Rainey, mitigating, told the court that Mr. Kellett was on benefits and saw the enterprise as a legitimate way of making money. He said his client - who he described as having 'a thinking deficit' - has since realised how serious his offending was.
Judge Guy Whitburn, QC, told Mr. Kellett: 'Whether or not you have any thinking deficit, make this connection - do it again and you go inside.' He imposed a nine-month prison sentence, suspended for two years, with probation service supervision.
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