THE Magistrate has expressed her “disbelief” at the “stupidity” of a senior executive at the Jersey Financial Services Commission whose career lay in tatters yesterday after he was caught evading duty on spirits and tobacco brought into the Island.
Liam Ronan (42) resigned from his £140,000 a year role as the JFSC’s executive director of technology and data on 13 November, three days after a Customs officer found 1,000 cigarettes, 1,750 grams of rolling tobacco and four litres of rum in his luggage as he passed through the arrivals hall at Jersey Airport.
The Magistrate’s Court heard that after 18 months’ employment with the JFSC, Ronan was on the point of moving his family to Jersey and had identified a house to buy.
Paul Lee, prosecuting, said Ronan was questioned at the Airport and claimed he did not know the allowances for duty-free spirits and tobacco.
Two litres of rum and 400 cigarettes were produced from a duty-free bag, with Ronan then confessing he had further goods in his other bags: there were two 500g boxes of hand-rolling tobacco in a laptop case, while a holdall contained two litres of spiced rum, 600 cigarettes and a 750g box of tobacco, as well as empty duty-free bags.
The court heard that the legal limits for duty-free importation were 200 cigarettes or 250g of tobacco, plus one litre of spirits.
Mr Lee said there was no suggestion that Ronan would have sought to profit by selling the goods, with his intention being to pass on the rum to a work colleague and the tobacco and cigarettes to family in the UK.
Advocate Simon Thomas, defending Ronan, said his client had committed a “serious error of judgment” that showed “absolute stupidity on his part” and would impact on his future career.
With the family’s plans to move to Jersey derailed and Ronan required to repay a relocation package received from his employer, Advocate Thomas said: “One can only imagine the disappointment visited upon them [the family]”.
The court heard that Ronan came from a “relatively humble” background and had risen to a senior role, but had now lost what his lawyer described as “everything he had worked so hard to achieve”, including a job paying £12,000 per month.
The Magistrate, Bridget Shaw, said: “This is a very difficult offence to understand. It really does beggar belief that you would put a very responsible job at risk for an offence of dishonesty from which you stood to gain very little.
“You must have known there were some restrictions, and if you really didn’t know then it would have been the easiest thing in the world to check – not checking was so reckless as to be more-or-less equivalent to knowing [the limits].
“Your wife referred [in a supporting letter given to the court] to your kindness, but if you’d wanted to help others you could have afforded to buy them the cigarettes or the spirits.”
After hearing that the unpaid duty on the products totalled £2,081, Mrs Shaw fined Ronan £6,000 and ordered that this sum be paid before he left the Island to return to his home in Macclesfield, near Manchester.
The JEP revealed on Monday that Ronan had been charged with the fraudulent evasion of customs duty. In a statement issued to this newspaper last week, the JFSC said: “Mr Ronan resigned with immediate effect from the JFSC on 13 November 2024. As referenced, he is due to appear in the Magistrate’s Court on 2 December.
“Given this is now in the hands of the courts, it would be inappropriate to provide any further comment.”
