Lee Sebbage

On Friday 10th October 2008 at Hereford Magistrates Court, Lee Sebbage of 60 Cheaton Close, Leominster, HR6 8EW was given a 2 year conditional discharge and ordered to forfeit £5000 worth of goods and equipment used in his counterfeiting operation.

At an earlier hearing he had pleaded guilty to 10 charges under the Trade Marks Act and Copyright Designs and Patents Act. The forfeiture order included 1300 fake DVDs, computer and printing equipment which had been seized from his house by Trading Standards Officers during a raid in November last year. 430 genuine DVDs were also forfeited by the court as they were used as templates for copying.

Part of his operation involved hiring numerous DVDs from the local library and then running off fake copies from them using illegal software which overrode the copyright protection. Sebbage was known in the area and to his former work colleagues as the man from whom you could get any DVD you wanted.

Some of the films he had fake copies of had not even been released yet at the cinema. In mitigation his solicitor Neil Coulson said his client had made little profit and had co-operated throughout the investigation.

Trading Standards manager, Mike Pigrem commented "People who run a counterfeiting business from home, no matter how small scale, are likely to find themselves before the courts. The sale of fake goods such as DVDs not only has a damaging effect on reputable high street retailers but also defrauds the consumer as the quality of the goods tends to be very poor. Serious organised crime is behind most counterfeiting but increasingly people are doing it at home and selling to work colleagues, at car boots and on internet auction sites.

We are keen to receive information on anyone suspected of such illegal activity.