£1m tea scam conman freed after fraction of jail sentence under SNP early release deal

Published: 19:01, 7 August 2026 | Updated: 19:01, 7 August 2026 A conman who was jailed for buying tea from around the world and passing it off as being grown in Perthshire has been freed under the SNP’s early release scheme. Thomas Robinson was sentenced to three-and-a-half years in June last year for perpetrating the elaborate fraud involving ‘significant, determined and sometimes complex planning’. However, it emerged yesterday he had served just a fraction of his sentence as he turned up at Stirling Sheriff Court for a proceeds of crime hearing.  Wearing a blue suit and check shirt, he chatted to his lawyer unaccompanied by guards, having being behind bars for just over 13 months. It comes after the Scottish Government introduced a policy in May that allows prisoners sentenced to less than four years to be automatically released after serving just 30 per cent of their jail term in a bid to reduce prison overcrowding Robinson, 56, had claimed to have cultivated the tea at his Perthshire estate using innovative techniques, but in reality it was bought from wholesalers and grown outside of Scotland.  Thomas Robinson was released after just 13 months of a 42-month sentence  He was locked up for defrauding hotels, tea retailers and other planters out of more than £550,000. At the hearing yesterday, fiscal depute Asif Rashid told the court the amount Robinson is alleged to have profited from through his criminal activity has gone up.  When the proceeds of crime case first called in March, the figure stood at £1,068,000. But Mr Rashif said the sum had now risen to about £1.142million. How much Robinson is eventually ordered to pay the public purse will depend on his available assets, which have not yet been revealed in open court. His solicitor Paul Sweeney said a valuation of his property had yet to be carried out. Sheriff Euan Gosney continued the case to a proof hearing on October 27, when any defence challenge to the alleged benefit amount will be considered. Robinson was also ordered to attend a procedural hearing next month. Trading as The Wee Tea Plantation, Robinson, also known as Thomas O’Brien or ‘Tam O’Braan’, ordered tea plants from a nursery in Sussex and planted them in the kaleyard of a former sheep farm rented near Loch Tay. There he showed them to buyers from upper-class outlets including Fortnum & Mason. He claimed to have found a way to make his tea flourish despite the Scottish weather by using a ‘special biodegradable polymer’, which prosecutors said resembled black bin liners. Mr Robinson ran an elaborate scam involving his business The Wee Tea Plantation The fraudster said he had given a presentation on his methods to the Royal Horticultural Society in London. He began supplying Edinburgh’s Balmoral Hotel with ‘Scottish single-estate tea’, and claimed he had been told that tea he supplied to London’s five-star Dorchester Hotel was ‘the [late] Queen’s favourite’.  Jurors heard that he had bought over a ton of tea grown abroad, repacked it, and sold it on. He disguised what he was doing by getting the foreign tea delivered to a mailbox address in Glasgow and paying for it through a private bank account. Prosecutors said a kilo of African tea could be sold for 100 times its cost if passed as grown in Scotland. Robinson, a father-of-four, of Amulree, Perthshire, denied the crime, claiming that paperwork he could have used in his defence had been destroyed in a flood and his electronic records wiped.