Key Summary
- Spalding shop owner jailed for 22 months over 77,000 illegal cigarettes.
- Continued blatant offending despite shop closures and suspended sentence.
- Authorities vow zero tolerance on illegal tobacco trade.
A Spalding convenience store owner has been sentenced to 22 months in prison after being found guilty of possessing more than 77,000 illegal cigarettes and 16kg of hand rolling tobacco.
Jutyar Jelal Salah, formerly of Severn Road, Spalding, was sentenced at Lincoln Crown Court on July 11, in the latest successful prosecution brought by Lincolnshire Trading Standards.
Salah, 36, owned and operated Easy Shop on Station Street in Spalding, which was issued with two closure orders in September 2023 and April 2024 after raids revealed sales of illegal cigarettes.
Andy Wright, Principal Trading Standards Officer at Lincolnshire County Council, said, “Trading Standards and the Police use closure orders as a means of protecting residents and putting an immediate stop to this type of criminal activity, but in most cases the closure order is just the start.
“In the case of Mr Salah, our contact with the landlord resulted in his eviction from Easy Shop. Following the closure of his premises he persisted by selling cigarettes from his car in Spalding town centre.
"He was convicted, receiving a 10 month suspended sentence and ordered to pay £18,428 in costs.
“Despite this, within weeks of receiving this suspended sentence Salah was caught red handed by Police and Trading Standards Officers retrieving illegal cigarettes from container storage in Spalding town centre.
"He admitted it was his intention to take them to customers as part of a home delivery service.
“Criminal cases such as this can take time to reach conclusion at court. As in this case, closure orders aren’t the end of the story. We have a zero-tolerance approach to the sale of illegal cigarettes and work proactively with our colleagues at Lincolnshire Police to stamp this criminal activity out wherever it rears its head.”
Lincolnshire Police Inspector, Matthew Dickinson, added, “This is an excellent result and demonstrates how serious the courts take this sort of offending, rightly recognising the impact on the wider community.
“Mr Salah was given opportunities to work towards rehabilitation but instead choose to commit further offences so was rightly brought before the courts once again. We work in partnership with Lincolnshire County Council Trading Standards to tackle the sale of illegal cigarettes, which is not just a simple localised crime but activity that supports wider organised criminality.
“We will continue to seek closure orders for premises in which we identify criminality to be taking place, and we will continue to support our Trading Standards colleagues in gathering evidence to allow further successful convictions, like in the case of Mr Salah.”
Sentencing Mr Salah, the judge said: “You were warned when sentenced for the suspended sentence order. It was suspended out of generosity so you could benefit from it and achieve rehabilitation.
"You went on almost immediately to commit further offences. I have considered whether I can suspend, but I am afraid by your behaviour you have made that an impossibility. There is no prospect of effective rehabilitation.
"Anything other than immediate custody is not justifiable as the offences were committed so soon after the suspended sentence order.”