Caerphilly shopkeeper sold illegal cigarettes and Fanta

Azad Ahmad was found out when an undercover trading standards officer bought Lambert & Butler cigarettes for £5 from Ystrad Mini Market in Ystrad Mynach, Caerphilly.

The retail price for a packet was around £12, Newport Crown Court was told.

“The defendant stated that he was being targeted due to his ethnicity,” prosecutor Thomas Stanway said.

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The price of bringing Ahmad’s case to court has cost the Caerphilly council taxpayer £7,000, it was revealed.

The defendant, who followed proceedings through a Kurdish Sorani interpreter, admitted the offences which were committed last January.

Ahmad, 31, of Broadway, Cardiff now works as a waiter for his cousin earning a £100 a week, his barrister Tabitha Walker said.

She urged the court to suspend her client’s prison sentence asking for his guilty pleas and lack of any previous convictions to be taken into account.

His lawyer said that the defendant had been “naïve and stupid” and she added that there was “a realistic prospect of rehabilitation” in his case.

The judge, Recorder Mark Powell KC, told Ahmad: “Miss Walker, on your behalf, says you have expressed remorse.

“I find that difficult to believe, although I suspect any remorse that you feel is as a result of being caught.

“I have to bear in mind potential health damage of you selling unregulated tobacco, unregulated vapes and I suppose possibly unregulated Fanta orange.”

Ahmad was jailed for nine months suspended for 12 months.

He was ordered to carry out 200 hours of unpaid work in the community and made the subject of a five-day rehabilitation activity requirement.

The defendant has to pay £750 costs and a £187 victim surcharge.

Recorder Powell added: “I would dearly love for you to repay all of the Caerphilly council taxpayers but I have to bear in mind your limited means.”