Apologies for reviving a dead thread (haven't been here for a while) however I thought I'd explain what happened here. I didn't wish to explain it in detail at the time but seeing how it's been misinterpreted here, I thought I'd clear things up
A long while before the member contacted UKAPU, he had attempted to import airsoft replicas into the UK however poorly explained his defence to Border Force. Off the back of that misunderstanding they seized his entire consignment, and it turns out that one crucial letter that was supposed to be sent by BF didn't make its way to the member. That'll be important later.
Several months later he gets in touch with us, fails to win the appeal with BF so off he went to the tax tribunal.
Several more months after that, we're all in what basically is a Zoom call with a judge, his clerk, a couple of folks from the Home Office and their solicitor.
Rather than deal with legislation related to the airsoft defences, the judge quite rightly spotted the procedural issue (the missing letter) and directed the Home Office (so, BF) to reconsider the member's condemnation appeal, in full consideration of any valid defences.
The judge remarked how complicated legislation related to airsoft was (the written submission I put together was rather extensive), so I suspect he was rather very happy to find a procedural issue he immediately issue a judgment against, rather than needing to dive into figuring out intended meanings of statutory instruments.