Birmingham City Council has upholded its 'zero tolerance' of counterfeiting and other illegal rackets in the city.
A trader was sentenced to 270 hours unpaid work and been given a nine-month prison sentence (suspended for two years) after pleading guilty to selling counterfeit goods from his shop in Northfield.
Roy Harvey Williams, of Farley Lane, Romsley, pleaded guilty to four charges under the Trade Marks Act 1994, after Trading Standards officers discovered counterfeit goods in his shop on four separate occasions between November
2005 and February 2006.
Acting on complaints received from members of the public, officers seized more than 800 counterfeit DVDs and Playstation games, as well as a number of illegal MP3 players and cigarettes from ‘The Kiosk’, Bristol Road, Northfield.
Birmingham Crown Court also ordered Mr Williams to pay £4,000 costs and granted a proceeds of crime order, which allows the confiscation of illegally gained cash or goods up to a value of £50,000.
Councillor Neil Eustace, Chair of the Public Protection Committee, said: "Counterfeiting is a serious crime. The actions of people who deal in counterfeit goods have a knock-on affect on the livelihood of legitimate traders, damages the economy and is often unwittingly supporting a far wider network of serious crime."
