WHEN customs officers confiscated Kenneth Boxall's cigarettes after a trip to Europe, he was determined not to take the loss lying down.

He launched a legal battle to get his tobacco back.

Yesterday, after six years and thousands of pounds in legal costs, he finally failed in his attempt to make Customs officers hand over almost 20,000 cigarettes.

Customs officials impounded the cigarettes -contained in nearly 1,000 packets -because they deemed them illegal.

Mr Boxall, of Pentland Close, Peterlee, County Durham, was stopped when re-entering Britain in November 2000 by Customs officers in Portsmouth, who seized the cigarettes on suspicion that they were for resale.

Mr Boxall, who smokes 60 cigarettes a day, told officers that they were for his use and would last him for ten months, but his claim was disputed.

There then ensued a six-year legal battle as Mr Boxall wrestled with the authorities to secure the return of his cigarettes.

Magistrates in Hampshire ruled in October 2004 that the cigarettes were liable to be forfeited and Mr Boxall's appeal against that decision was dismissed at Portsmouth Crown Court in June last year.

Yesterday, he challenged the dismissal of his appeal before Mr Justice Langstaff, sitting at the High Court, in London.

Mr Boxall, who represented himself, told the judge via a video-link that there had been "failures by Customs officers to carry out their administrative powers using an honest, fair, sensible or correct interpretation of the relevant laws".

He argued that his cigarettes should not have been confiscated and that, if the Customs officers had not believed his account that they were not for resale, he should have been offered the chance to pay duty on them and take them away.

But Mr Justice Langstaff disagreed and dismissed the application, saying: "I have no alternative with these unmeritorious applications but to reject them."