A practice that is of doubtful legality.
HM Customs (or whatever they're called this week) has been censured repeatedly by some EC court for impeding free trade.
That they keep just ignoring them means that a politician somewhere wants them to keep breaking European law.
Apparently they're no longer allowed to stop people coming into the country 'on spec' any more and must now have intelligence that something is being smuggled. This follows them confiscating a load of booze because they claimed it was 'far too much for personal use'.
Unfortunately for them it wasn't. It was the property of some rich guy bringing back the booze for his daughter's wedding, to be held in a huge marquee on his lawn.
He was rich enough to drag them through the courts in the UK and HM Customs, despite their usual 'high and mighty' atbreastude can't ignore a High Court decision.
-- William Black
I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Barbeques on fire by the chalets past the castle headland I watched the gift shops glitter in the darkness off the Newborough gate All these moments will be lost in time, like icecream on the beach Time for tea.
