A SMALL business owner faces seeing thousands of pounds washed down the drain after his product was seized in a customs bungle.

Simon Laird, who runs Glasgow-based beer import firm Premium Czech beers, has called Border Force officials a staggering 67 times to find out why thousands of bottles of booze were held by customs.

Despite his efforts, he is also still none the wiser about the problems with his shipment which arrived in the UK in March.

To add to his misery, officials say only five pallets of beer, around 3500 bottles, have been held and have given no explanation as to where the other 1500 have gone.

If Simon cannot get the beer to Glasgow within the next two weeks, he risks losing up to £12,000 as it will not be able to be sold due to its expiry date.

Simon, from Partick, said:”If Border Control were running a business they would have shut down by now. It’s absolutely ridiculous.

“ I accept that a mistake has been made somewhere, but nobody has told me what the mistake is, or how to fix it, and meanwhile they have my stock which I cant trade.

“I’ve tried to say to them that I need the goods on my shelf by a certain date otherwise they are worthless. They are as well being destroyed.

“The Government will get no duty or revenue from me, so everybody will be a loser and they’ll put me out of business.”

When Simon was notified of the problem on March 14, he called officials only to discover the phone line was only open for one hour a day.

He called 67 times until he eventually got through, but was advised to email another office in Dover.

Distraught Simon was then told the National Post Seizure Unit (NPSU), which handles seized goods,w as dealing with a three week backlog.

Simon said: “You’re at their mercy and nobody seems willing to help at all.

“You are relying on an understaffed government body to help. It’s very frustrating. I think it must be a fairly minor mistake or a misunderstanding as the shipment was fine before.

“HMRC would probably stand to get about £4000 from this. They are denying themselves.

“I also don’t know where the sixth palette of beer has gone - is it just going round the country somewhere or have they actually got it?”

The Home Office were contacted for comment but did not respond at the time of going to press.