A Bradford businessman caught leaving Portsmouth for Spain with more than £13,000 was ordered to forfeit the cash after customs officials claimed he was using it for drug smuggling.

Shaun Brear, owner of Sean Brear Motors based at Thornton Road, Bradford, was ordered to give up the money by Portsmouth magistrates.

The Court heard he had links to two men investigated over a plot to bring £8.75m of cannabis into the UK.

The 31-year-old, whose home address was given as Thorpe Avenue, Thornton, had claimed he was using the cash to buy a cheap car on the continent to help patch up his stormy relationship with his girlfriend.

However, traces of Ecstasy were found on some of the bank notes and he could not initially provide details of the vehicle he was planning to purchase.

Brear also did not know where he was going to stay and could not remember the surname of the friends he was to meet in Spain.

At Portsmouth Magistrates Court the mechanic and car dealer was ordered to give up the cash after a forfeiture order was granted under the 1994 Drug Trafficking Act.

Iain Ross, representing HM Customs and Excise, said: "There is a strong inference that the money that was being exported from this country was indeed being used for the purposes of drug trafficking."

Magistrates were told that a close friend of Brear's called John Hammond had worked for the 31-year-old at his motor business.

The mechanic had also been put forward as a person who could provide a surety so another friend, Timothy Compton, could be released on bail while facing drugs charges.

Compton, 35, and Hammond, 32, both also from Bradford were later jailed for three years and ten months and three years respectively for conspiracy to smuggle £668,000 of cannabis.

They had been investigated as part of a plot to bring in £8.75m of the drug into the UK.

However Brear, who has previous convictions for handling stolen goods, claimed this had nothing to do with him. He had also not had to face any criminal charges in relation to drugs smuggling.

He told the court: "Most of the money had come out of my bank account. I never thought I would have a problem. I thought it would be put back. It was hard-earned money."

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