Three on £½ million ciggie charges

Feb 21 2008

A BLANTYRE man was caught handling millions of cigarettes on which duty of £500,000 had not been paid, a court was told this week.

Stephen McLean (46), of Viewfield Avenue, was said to have been nabbed during a Customs and Excise operation at an East Kilbride Industrial Estate on January 28, 2005.

McLean and two other accused — David Rowding (65) of Sheffield and Matthew Adams (32) of Rotherham — denied defrauding the Crown by handling 2,440,000 cigarettes chargeable with duty which had not been paid.

The charge stated that the three men carried out the offence at the Colvilles Road Industrial Estate between December 27, 2004, and January 28, 2005, while acting with others.

All three lodged special defences. McLean’s stated that if the offence was committed, a Henry Airlie — currently serving a jail term in Barlinnie — was responsible.

Giving evidence on Tuesday, customs officer Joseph Hendry (43) told Hamilton Sheriff Court that he and two other customs officers went to the industrial estate with a ‘writ of assistance’ giving them search powers.

They were interested in a white transit van and a lorry trailer which were parked “back-to-back.”

When Mr Hendry arrived at the scene he shouted: “Customs and Excise, nobody move.”

There was no sign of life, he said, but when he looked within the space between the van and trailer he saw one man in the van and another in the trailer, who were later identified as Airlie and McLean.

He said McLean was standing in the back of the transit van “in shock.”

However, when Mr Hendry was asked by fiscal depute John Gildea if he could identify McLean in court, he said: “To be honest, I would just be guessing.”

McLean and Airlie were asked to step out of the vehicles and were detained by two other customs officers.

Mr Hendry told the court that brown boxes were found in the van, and inside a box with loose packaging he found 200 cartons containing 20-cigarette packets each with the brand name ‘Palace.’

When he turned his attention to the trailer he found smaller boxes which also contained cigarettes and boxes which had ‘Regal King Size’ printed on the side.

Mr Hendry explained that duty had to be paid to HM Treasury on cigarettes manufactured, sold or imported into the UK.

He said he was later given the figure of 2,312,000 cigarettes by colleagues, and prepared a schedule which estimated that a total of £460,854.47 in duty should have been paid to the Exchequer.

A quantity of cigarettes found at a house in Blantyre was also included in his calculations.

Mr Gildea asked Mr Hendry if he had found a ‘fiscal mark’ on cigarette packets indicating duty had been paid.

He replied: “I could see from the initial inspection there wasn’t a fiscal mark.”

Mr Hendry also said he could not imagine a UK manufacturer selling cigarettes in the UK without one.

The trial before Sheriff Vincent Smith was continuing yesterday as the Advertiser went to press.