THE businessman who set up the country's first offshore off-licence is turning his back on Britain after failing to win support.

Philip Berriman last night said he felt let down because his one-man crusade against high taxes on cigarettes and alcohol had not been taken up by others.

The 46-year-old is now selling his "baccy" boat on Internet auction site eBay and plans to move abroad.

He said: "I don't see why I should fight the cause for 70 million people - people who don't seem to mind paying duty on their goods - when I get no help from anywhere."

Mr Berriman hit the headlines last year when he started selling cut-price alcohol and cigarettes from the Cornish Maiden, moored 13 miles off the North-East coast.

But the plan fell foul of Customs, which said he was in breach of tax regulations even though he insisted that he was trading in international waters.

Mr Berriman is due to go to court next month in an effort to overturn a decision to destroy stock seized by Customs officers.

He said customers did not have to pay duty on goods bought on his boat because tax had already been paid in the country where they were bought -a claim Customs and Excise disputed.

Now Mr Berriman, from Norton, Teesside, is selling Cornish Maiden on the auction website - and hopes the 50ft former lighthouse supply vessel will go for £9,995.

Mr Berriman said he was selling the boat because he could no longer use it for its "lawful" purpose - selling cut-price alcohol and cigarettes off Hartlepool. He said: "Customs are making my life impossible. Whenever I take the boat out and come back, they are all over me. It is just ludicrous."

Mr Berriman now lives on a yacht which was first used to sell cheap goods offshore last summer.