A PENSIONER caught bringing almost 4,000 cigarettes into Scotland from Spain claimed he smoked 100 cigarettes-a-day in a bid to avoid paying tax on them.
Retired engineer Robert Stevenson said his chain-smoking habit meant the cigarettes were for personal use and denied he was importing them for "commercial purposes".
But a sheriff rejected his claim, and said he did not believe the 65-year-old had
the money or the time to smoke five packets a day – equal to one cigarette every ten minutes.
Mr Stevenson, from Tweed Street, Grangemouth, was stopped by customs officers at Edinburgh Airport in January 2008 after returning from a three-day trip to Malaga.
Customs officers became suspicious of his large suitcase after he passed through the 'nothing to declare' channel.
They searched his luggage and found it stuffed full with 3,900 cigarettes and 10 kg of hand rolling tobacco, which they seized.
The guidelines state that travellers can bring in around 3,200 cigarettes and 3 kg of tobacco without paying duty.
The court heard the pensioner had made at least four trips to Spain over an eight-month period, with flights costing around £200.
He said he went to Spain because it was the cheapest place to buy cigarettes in Western Europe, with prices half that of the UK.
He claimed he was a chain smoker who smoked at least 80 to 100 cigarettes a day, and had used £1,200 of his savings to buy six or seven months supply.
After a hearing at Edinburgh Sheriff Court, Sheriff Kenneth Maciver described his claims as "incredible" and said he did not believe he could smoke 100-a-day.
He ruled the goods should be forfeited by HM Revenue and Customs.
"Mr Stevenson would have me believe that he smokes a cigarette virtually every ten minutes of his waking day, not allowing for eating and drinking," said the sheriff in a written judgement.
"He suggested that he didn't sleep very much and was a poor eater.
"I cannot speak to the former but he certainly did not give the physical impression of the latter, and he indicated no difficulty in complying with the new national anti-smoking restrictions."
Mr Stevenson had claimed his only income was his £146-a-week pension, and failed to show the court evidence of his savings.
"If I had believed that he smoked five packets of cigarettes a day, or its equivalent in rolled tobacco, that would cost between £20 and £25 on the average day and would equate to a huge part of his weekly income, which he stated at £146," said the sheriff.
"It is of course difficult for me to know exactly what the defender was doing with the cigarettes and tobacco which he imported.... but I am satisfied that he had a financial motive and that there was some form of arrangement.
"I am quite clear that the cigarettes and tobacco which he imported in January ... were not for his personal consumption and were indeed being held by him for a commercial purpose, whatever that purpose may be," he added.
