John Robert Pascual v Commissioners of Customs and Excise

Facts

The appellant, Mr John Robert Pascual, lived in Gateshead and had formerly worked on a North Sea oil platform on a high salary until an accident left him unemployable in that industry, though he retained substantial savings and the benefit of a collection raised by his fellow workers. On 12 September 1996 he was stopped at the Boston Spa weighbridge on the Great North Road, where police were examining vehicles for roadworthiness and officers of Customs were present. His Ford Transit was found to contain 400 cigarettes, 2 litres of spirits, 27 litres of wine and 786 litres of beer, acquired on a two-hour trip to a retail outlet near Calais the previous day. Interviewed and cautioned at the scene, he maintained the goods were for his own use. Customs refused to restore the goods, treating the importation as commercial, and imposed a penalty of £250; both decisions were upheld on review by Mr Mike Louis in a letter dated 4 November 1996. A tribunal sitting in Gateshead dismissed the appeal on 26 September 1997, but that decision was quashed by consent in the Divisional Court and the appeal remitted for rehearing before a differently constituted tribunal.