Shopkeeper sold fake DVD to undercover policeman

A shopkeeper has pleaded guilty to selling fake DVDs.
ScalesScales
Scales

A total of 230 DVDs were seized from Ehtishan Sajjad’s shop in Colne Road, Burnley, earlier this year.

Magistrates heard Lancashire County Council’s Trading Standards found the DVDs during an inspection during which Sajjad, who was behind the counter, told officers he was only there to collect personal belongings and no longer owned the business.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

However, the court was told he had also been seen serving at the shop a month earlier and had even sold copied DVDs to an undercover officer a week after the inspection.

Some of the titles, which included Hollywood blockbusters “The Wolf of Wall Street” and “12 Years a Slave”, were so recent they had not even been granted age classification certificates to allow them to be viewed in the UK.

Sajjad, of Percy Street, Nelson, admitted previous convictions for similar offences in 2012.

He told the court that, following his last court appearance, he sold the business to another man, but financial pressures in early 2014 tempted him back in to his old ways.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

Sajjad, a father of three who works full-time, insisted he was a hard-working man trying to do his best.

Burnley magistrates imposed a three-month curfew order from 7pm to 6am following Sajjad’s admission he was knowingly a party to a business carried on for a fraudulent purpose.

He also admitted five offences of possessing DVDs bearing counterfeit trademarks and an offence involving an unclassified disc, contrary to the Video Recordings Act.

Magistrates made an order for the forfeiture and destruction of all the seized DVDs and ordered Sajjad to pay costs and a surcharge totalling £600.