A Co Meath lorry driver was cleared by a jury at Armagh Crown Court yesterday of smuggling cigarettes and drink, with unpaid duty amounting to £412,125, into Northern Ireland from the Continent.
The jury took two hours to bring in not guilty verdicts in the case of Mr Paul Eugene Sherlock (37) of Rathtrasna, Drumconrath. The trial lasted four days.
Customs officers uncovered 2.34 million cigarettes, 6,480 litres of vodka and rum, and four kilos of rolling tobacco behind a cargo of onions when they stopped the lorry coming off the Heysham ferry at Warrenpoint on January 21st. Defence counsel Mr John Orr QC argued that Mr Sherlock was not attempting to defraud the British Exchequer, as the destination of the goods was not Northern Ireland. Jurors had heard a customs national investigator allege that Mr Sherlock had told him he was offered £2,500 to deliver the goods to Dublin by a Spaniard called Mario, whom he had met in a restaurant on the Spanish-French border.