CUSTOMS officers claim that the businessman at the centre of Britain’s first avian flu case made up to £4m from an alleged bird-smuggling operation.

Officers working under cover found that Brett Hammond secretly imported thousands of exotic birds using fake documents more than a decade ago, according to court records.

Despite the discovery of the illegal trade, Hammond was allowed to continue to run one of Britain’s 83 quarantine centres, which are a key defence against an avian flu pandemic.

Hammond was prosecuted for Vat evasion and jailed for a year. He denies smuggling, but his accountant said last week that Hammond accepts that some of the birds were not quarantined.

The disclosure that Hammond flouted a scheme for which he is now responsible is an embarrassment for Margaret Beckett, the environment secretary, who has been accused of overseeing a “shambolic” quarantine system.

Last night Beckett was under further pressure as new documents showed that the UK had rejected a proposed ban on commercial wild bird imports to protect against avian flu six months ago. She had insisted in the House of Commons last week that the proposal had nothing to do with protecting the country from avian flu.

Britain’s first case of the H5N1 strain of avian flu, which has killed at least 60 people in Asia, was confirmed eight days ago after the death of an orange-winged Amazon parrot at the quarantine centre operated by Hammond’s company, Pegasus Birds.

The centre consists of a group of ramshackle sheds in the garden of a semi-detached house in South Fambridge, Essex. It has emerged that 32 other birds had died there before the parrot and that some of those were also infected with avian flu.

Checks are still being carried out on other batches of birds previously imported by Hammond. Ministers hope no infected birds were sold to the public.

Cursory checks on Hammond would have revealed the authorities’ extensive files on his activities. In the early 1990s he was under surveillance on suspicion of selling wild birds without putting them in quarantine and for failing to declare the imports to customs.

Court documents state: “The investigation involved the alleged large-scale smuggling of exotic birds into the United Kingdom. The birds would be purchased from various dealers (in Europe) and be transferred to a hired van. The birds would then be concealed to avoid detection.”

Prosecution lawyers alleged that Hammond and an associate were involved in the smuggling operation. The drivers transporting the live cargoes were given official documentation — including false invoices — permitting importation.

On most occasions, however, they were not challenged and the birds entered the country illegally and without going into quarantine, according to customs documents held by the court.

Between January 1993 and May 1995, officers identified 165 trips involving Hammond and his associate. On some, they followed vehicles suspected of carrying boxes of birds from Belgium and Holland. “These vehicles were followed from Dover on a number of occasions and each time the deliveries were made to the premises of Pegasus Birds Ltd.”

Hammond was jailed for 18 months at Knightsbridge Crown Court in London in February 1997 after admitting a specimen charge of evading up to £50,000 Vat. This was reduced to 12 months on appeal.

Customs officers claimed in documents prepared for the court that Hammond had made £4m from the trade. He contested this and the dispute was referred to the Vat commissioners where it remains unresolved. Hammond’s accountant, Richard Freeman, who is acting for him in the Vat case, denied that Hammond was involved in any unlawful trips. He said some of the birds imported in the 1990s had not gone into quarantine, but it was a “minor infraction” because they did not pose any significant risk to bird or human health.

Critics say the fact that Hammond was given a licence to run a quarantine centre is evidence that the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) failed to carry out full background checks.

On September 16 this year, a batch of parrots from Surinam in South America arrived in the UK and were sent to Hammond’s quarantine centre. They were mixed with 185 birds from Taiwan.

Howard Savage, a hospital worker employed by Hammond to look after the birds, became concerned when several died. They were put in a freezer for veterinary tests.

The virus was first found in a mixed sample taken from two parrots. It is still not known whether both birds or just one was infected with avian flu.

Debby Reynolds, the government’s chief veterinary officer, has said the strain of virus was similar to that identified in Chinese ducks and her “working hypothesis” is that the infection came from Taiwan. Dr Edgar Lin, Taiwan’s representative to the UK, said however: “I’m astonished the system could be so shabby. We feel our country has been tarnished before the full facts are known.”

The case has exposed the lack of checks and public accountability of the UK’s 83 bird quarantine centres. One of the key criticisms is that bird dealers are allowed to run quarantine centres.

Members of the public would not even have been aware that Hammond was running the quarantine centre because there is no public register. Inspection reports of the centres are confidential and their locations cannot be revealed for “commercial” reasons, according to Defra.

Another key weakness in the quarantine system is that it allows different batches of birds to share quarantine sheds. It means that it is more difficult to identify the source of a virus in an outbreak.

Explore World News

• World Agenda

• Iraq News

• US & Americas News

• Europe News

• Middle East News

• Afghanistan News

• Asia News

• Africa News

• Ireland News

Times Recommends

• Should Knox’s trial even have reached the courtroom?
• 'Was it real?' The US bailout nightmare
• Iranian opposition plays the long game