Smoking rebel vows to defy ban

Sixty-a-day smoker Peter Boddington said yesterday that he would rather go to jail than obey a High Court injunction banning him from lighting up on the London to Brighton train.

His rebellion came after Connex South Central, whose BR predecessors prosecuted him in the criminal courts, succeeded in a civil action aimed at ending the commuter's habit of smoking in the buffet car of their trains where there is now a complete ban.

The injunction was imposed until Mr Boddington's challenge to his pounds 10 fine for smoking is either heard or rejected by the House of Lords. Mr Boddington, the owner of Tooting Market in south London, is now standing as an independent parliamentary candidate in Tooting, and says in his election literature that a vote for him will "help stop people being sent to prison by the French for smoking on British trains"