A LONG distance driver has told a jury entries in his diary did not relate to payments for smuggling millions of cigarettes into the UK.

Sean Bunkell, 35, claimed references to £500 were linked to a duty free racket he operated to help close friends.

Bunkell added at Manchester Crown Court: "Initially, I exceeded my allowances by bringing in extra cigarettes and bottles of spirits.

Bunkell said there was no truth in an allegation the entries referred to payments for smuggling in many millions of cigarettes hidden behind legitimate loads. He said a diary reference in September 1997 to "a nice little earner" was about a private arrangement he had with his boss, Stuart Taylor.

Bunkell said on outward runs on the continent he filled up with VAT free red diesel which was illegal. It saved the firm a lot of money.

Keith Goddard QC, defending, then questioned him about two men, Stephen Wynn and Francis Beckett. The crown says they were behind some illegal importations. Bunkell said he had never met either man.

In March 1998 when he and another driver with Blackburn-based Stuart Taylor International, Darren Pollard, were stopped by customs at Portsmouth. The two HGVs had crossed from Caen in northern France. Concealed by pallets of oranges were 6.4million cigarettes.

Bunkell, of Lytham St Annes, is in the dock with Pollard, 32, of Farrer Street, Nelson, their boss, Stuart Taylor, 43, of Land Ends Cottage, Balderstone, and his manager, Stuart Harris, 40, of Charles Street, Rishton.

They deny conspiring together and with Wynn and Beckett to evade duty on cigarettes between August 1997 and the following March.

Wynn, 42, of Widnes, and Beckett, 35, of Ormskirk, have pleaded guilty.

(Proceeding)

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