Road police find tobacco tax dodgers

Attention was drawn to the white van on its journey from Essex because it kept in the middle lane although traffic was quiet.

A search in the rear revealed 1.25 tonnes of tobacco on which £161,987 duty should have been paid, Stephen Brown prosecuting told Leeds Crown Court.

The driver, Andrew McFarlane claimed at the time he had delivered the vehicle to Essex for a traveller and was returning it the North East unaware of its load.

His passenger Paul Joseph Birtle, said he had been drunk from start to finish of the journey and had no recollection of what had happened.

McFarlane, 50 of Ingleby Road, Great Broughton, near Stokesley was given a nine months jail sentence suspended for 12 months with 50 hours unpaid work and ordered to pay £250 costs after he admitted the revenue offence on December 4, 2010.

Birtle, 46, of Sowerby Crescent, Stokesley, was given a six months community order with a 15-day specified activity requirement and £200 costs after he admitted the same offence.

Judge Scott Wolstenholme said he accepted McFarlane was doing the tobacco run for someone else and was unlikely to have made the profit from it but there had to be a jail term, although suspended, because of the amount of money involved and the prevalence of such offending.