A real ale enthusiast who brewed beer illegally and failed to pay £30,000 in excise duty has been jailed for 12 months.

Pub landlord John Mitchell, who has recently been running the Brewery Arms and Cricketers Arms in Keighley, was locked up on Tuesday after pleading guilty to evading excise duty on beer brewed by his company Green Bottle Ltd between October 1996 and August 1997.

Bradford Crown Court heard how Mitchell, 40, a father-of-three, became involved in the brewing business in 1992, but his barrister David Kelly described him as an unsophisticated entrepreneur. He got into financial difficulties when a previous business, Commercial Brewing, went into liquidation towards the end of 1996, but Mr Kelly said he hoped to trade his way out using the new company Green Bottle.

"In effect he was deferring the duty in the hope of better times to come," he said. From March 1997 he didn't have a brewer's licence at all. He should not have been brewing and he accepts from that time on he acted fraudulently."

But Mr Kelly said Mitchell's motive for continuing to trade was a noble one because he also wanted to give his existing staff time to find other jobs, which they eventually did. "It was not a profitable time for him. He just about broke even, but he did at least keep his employees in work."

He stressed that Mitchell did not try to conceal what he was doing and continued to apply for a new brewer's licence which he eventually got in September 1997. Mr Kelly said since then he had been trading legitimately and paying all his taxes.

He urged Recorder John Tin-nion not to send his client to prison and argued that the possible effects on staff at the two pubs could be seen as an exceptional circumstance for suspending any sentence.

Recorder Tinnion accepted that Mitchell's motivation in brewing beer was as a real ale enthusiast rather than making money, but he said the offences were serious matters.

In addition to the charge of evading duty on beer Mitchell, who lives at the Brewery Arms pub, also admitted evading duty on more than 26 kilograms of hand rolling tobacco.

The tobacco was discovered when Customs officers searched the home of Mitchell and his wife, Allyson, during their inquiries. Both claimed that it was for Allyson Mitchell's personal use, but they later admitted selling some of the tobacco on to staff.

Allyson Mitchell, also 40, who worked as Green Bottle's company secretary, was found guilty by a jury last November of being concerned in the evasion of duty on the beer. She was also convicted on a charge of failing to pay more than £6,000 in VAT and admitted the offence in relation to evading duty on the tobacco.

Mitchell, who is now estranged from her husband, but still lives in the former matrimonial home in Queens Grove, Keighley, was given a nine month prison sentence suspended for two years. Recorder Tinnion accepted medical evidence that she currently suffers from a depressive illness and may also have had mental health problems at the time of the offences.

He also disqualified both of them from acting as company directors for the next three years.

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