A Polish trucker has been cleared of smuggling more than £8m black market cigarettes through a Tyneside port.

Customs officers at North Shields stopped Michal Wysocki's lorry for a random check when he arrived by ferry from Gothenburg.

His cargo seemed to be four large crates of glassware for a company in Wales.

But when the boxes were checked 8.5m Polish cigarettes, worth £1.3m in duty alone, were found stashed inside.

Prosecutors at Newcastle Crown Court claimed the 32-year-old was a courier assigned to deliver the huge contraband haul. But Wysocki instead claimed he had no idea the cigarettes were on his truck.

He told investigators he had been directed to a broken-down lorry in Sweden, collected the crates and delivery documents, and drove on to the Princess of Scandinavia ferry with instructions to make what he thought was a legitimate glassware delivery to Wales.

He denied being knowingly concerned in smuggling the cigarettes.

And a Newcastle Crown Court jury took less than an hour to find him not guilty at the end of a three-day trial.