A SMUGGLER has escaped jail despite his part in bringing one of the largest hauls of contraband cigarettes into a North-East airport this year.

Nigel Mark Cleckner, 30, of Franklyn Road, Peterlee, County Durham, was sentenced to a 240-hour community punishment order after pleading guilty to evading excise duty when he appeared before Darlington magistrates yesterday.

He was caught at Teesside Airport earlier this year as part of a Customs and Excise operation to stop smugglers using provincial airports, which they had seen as an easy route to smuggle in contraband goods.

When stopped by Customs officers at the airport, he fled before being caught in the car park, the court was told.

Linda Thompson, prosecuting, said: "He was intercepted by Customs officers and arrested. Two cases were found abandoned on the luggage carousel."

The cases had just under 34,000 cigarettes in them, with an estimated value of more than £5,700.

Ms Thompson said: "He was interviewed about the goods and he said he had travelled out to the Canary Islands to relax and had booked a single ticket.

"He said while he had been out there, he met a gipsy friend who asked him to check in some luggage for him. However, he would not give the name of this friend.

"He said he didn't realise that they were in his name.

"He said he lost the plot and just ran off because he had been stopped before for smuggling.

"His ticket had also been found, torn, in a bin on the aircraft, and the remnants of a ticket belonging to a second man who had been stopped at the same time.

"He denied any knowledge of this passenger, who had been caught with 32,280 cigarettes. Further checks at Newcastle Airport established that they had travelled together on the aircraft on the way out there as well."

Jason Smith, mitigating for Cleckner, said: "While he has committed similar offences in the past he is genuinely sorry for this one."

Customs and Excise spokesman Rob Hastings-Trew said he could not comment on the magistrates' decision to spare the defendant a jail sentence.

But he said: "We have seen a pattern of people using provincial airports to smuggle cigarettes in large quantities. We will stop people who try to do this and they will be prosecuted."