Mohamed Hersi v Her Majesty's Revenue & Customs, C 00271

C00271

Customs Duty - Seizure of a jar of honey, posted from a relative in Australia to the Appellant - whether the Commissioners were unreasonable in their decision not to return the honey to the Appellant when the jar of honey weighed 1.8Kg., and the maximum weight for postal importations of honey for own consumption was 1 Kg. - Appeal dismissed

MOHAMED HERSI Appellant

• and –

Tribunal: HOWARD M NOWLAN (Chairman)

Sitting in public in London on 19 February 2009

The Appellant in person

Rupert Jones, counsel, for the Respondents

© CROWN COPYRIGHT 2009

The facts and the law

1. In this case, the Appellant's uncle, who lived in Australia, had posted a large 1.8Kg. tub of honey to the Appellant in England. The honey was plainly sent as a gift, and it appeared that the uncle thought that the honey might serve as an alternative treatment for the Appellant’s hepatitis B condition.

2. The postal packet was opened by Customs officers of HMRC, and it was seized. This was because, whilst pots of honey weighing no more than 1.0 Kg were exempt from seizure if certain other conditions were satisfied (as they were in this case), that exemption did contain the maximum size limit, and the pot in the present case was nearly twice the maximum size.

3. The Regulations under which the honey was seized were the Products of Animal Origin (Third Country Imports) (England) Regulations 2006 (No 2841). It appeared that the general purpose of these Regulations was to prevent dangerous or diseased products from entering England. Consistently there are provisions for veterinary checks to be made of imported animal products. Honey is one of the products in relation to which the normal import restrictions were disapplied, however, in relation to "personal imports in the personal luggage of a traveller intended for personal consumption" and to products "sent by post or carrier (otherwise than by way of trade or as a trade sample) and addressed to a private individual in England, if they are intended for his personal consumption", and if four further conditions were met. Of those four, three were met, and the one that was not satisfied was the one that required the weight of the imported product not to exceed 1 Kg. The implicit thinking behind the exemption from the normal application of the restrictions was that honey (and other relevant products covered by the exemption) was not particularly dangerous or particularly likely to contaminate local products; it would be impractical to apply veterinary checks in relation to small quantities of personally imported product, and thus, provided the imported products fell below a "de minimis" threshold, they could be imported without tests or complications.

4. When the Appellant was notified that the parcel addressed to him had been seized, he immediately e-mailed the relevant department of HMRC involved with postal seizures (on 17 March 2008) and explained that the honey was a present from his uncle in Australia; that it was only intended for consumption by him or his family; that neither he nor his uncle had known of the weight limit for personal postal imports of honey, and that he would see that the limit was never infringed in future. Naturally he asked for the honey to be returned to him.

5. The Appellant received an instant reply in a letter also dated 17 March. This letter was not a particularly satisfactory one. Initially it explained that:-

• the officer in question would not and could not consider the legality of the seizure, because that could only be challenged in the Magistrates’ Court;

• the Commissioners had some discretion to return seized goods, with “each case [being] examined on its merits to determine whether or not restoration [might] be offered exceptionally”; and

• that in considering restoration, the officer would look at all of the circumstances surrounding the seizure.

The letter then went on to indicate that “importers must...