Pubdate: Fri, 16 Aug 2002
Source: Daily Telegraph (UK)
Copyright: 2002 Telegraph Group Limited
Contact:  http://www.telegraph.co.uk/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/114
Author: Stephen Robinson

CUSTOMS SWITCH TACTICS TO RANDOM OUTWARD CHECKS

Customs officers at Channel ports are stopping and questioning thousands of
British travellers heading for the Continent in a switch of tactics
triggered by their defeat in a High Court case.

The court ruled on July 31 that it was illegal for Customs and Excise to
stop and search returning travellers at random. Officers must have
reasonable grounds for suspicion of smuggling before stopping someone, it
said.

But ferry companies and travellers report that, after an initial lull, the
zealous regime of random searches of vehicles has been restored, with the
addition of outward-bound checks. Hoverspeed, the ferry operator which
brought the action to the High Court, is so incensed by the failure to abide
by the court ruling that it is considering seeking an injunction.

Travellers leaving by ferry or on the Shuttle train at Folkestone are being
stopped and questioned on British soil by Customs officers who frequently do
not identify themselves as such.

Travellers are asked if they are going shopping, how much money they have
with them, when they are returning, and even to give their credit card
limits. Some travellers reported that they refused to answer and demanded to
know why officers were investigating someone leaving the country. In most
cases, the Customs officers retreated rather than provide requested formal
identification.

Hoverspeed regards the new tactic as only one aspect of a general refusal to
abide by the ruling. "We are sick to death of them," said Steve Lawrence,
Hoverspeed's spokesman. "They are still acting unlawfully and in flagrant
defiance of the High Court ruling."

Customs and Excise said yesterday that it was appealing against the ruling,
though it maintained that aside from a couple of "technicalities", the
judgment amounted to an endorsement of its officers' anti-smuggling tactics.

Keith Betts, a Dover-based solicitor who specialises in Customs cases,
believed the outbound cross-examination was an attempt by officers to create
a justification for stopping cars on the way back.

"They will say, if challenged about why they have stopped someone randomly
coming back, that the traveller said he was going shopping and that their
suspicions were justifiably aroused," Mr Betts said. "But the random stop on
the way out is as illegal as on the way in."
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