An Ealing pensioner, jailed for illegally selling Viagra-style potency pills, has failed to overturn a £600,000 confiscation order designed to claw back his ill-gotten gains.

Brian Frederick Hipwood, 70, tried to flee cops half-naked when customs officers raided his home and was found to be hoarding smuggled tobacco, diazepam and unlicensed sex pills.

Hipwood, of Hangar Vale Lane, Ealing, was sentenced to 15 months’ imprisonment at Isleworth Crown Court in April 2013.

He was convicted of one count of cheating the public revenue, nine of having a medicinal product without a marketing authorisation and one of possessing a class C drug with intent to supply.

In June last year, he was brought back before a judge and hit with the £600,000 confiscation bill.

Today at London's Criminal Appeal Court, Lord Justice Hamblen heard his bid to get that order cut by £200,000.

The judge, sitting with Mrs Justice Cheema-Grubb and Judge John Wait, heard that Hipwood had been selling tobacco without declaring the duty, as well as dealing in unauthorised and potentially dangerous Viagra-style medicine.

His barrister, Jai Patel, argued the judge who imposed the confiscation order wrongly took into account £200,000 worth of "unknown hidden property assets" that Hipwood was suspected of having salted away abroad.

Mr Patel claimed Hipwood made small margins, "operating as a wholesaler, not a retailer", and the judge ought to have stuck to his £400,000 assets in the UK.

Dismissing his challenge, Lord Justice Hamblen said: "There was no evidence to support his claim that he was a wholesaler rather than a retailer.

"The judge was under no obligation to take his assertion at face value."

Hipwood must now pay the £600,000 in full or face an additional five-year jail term in default.

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