A clothing company which sold tens of thousands of pounds of counterfeit t-shirts has been fined only a fraction of this sum.
T-Shirt Subway flogged the branded band, television show and movie tops online in breach of trademarks. The Prescot-based firm even continued doing so after receiving a cease and desist warning from Trading Standards.
Liverpool Crown Court heard today, Friday, that an investigation by St Helens Council revealed that the business had sold around £30,000 of infringing goods between May 2017 and July 2018. Officers made test purchases from its now defunct website as part of their enquiries.
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It came after an earlier probe in 2013 which revealed T-Shirt Subway - of which 59-year-old Stephen Carroll, of Ingleholme Gardens, was the owner and sole director - "had been responsible for selling large numbers" of similar fake gear. Johnathan Duffy, prosecuting, described how it received a "cease and desist" warning notice following this and agreed to remove the "offending items" from its site.
He said: "On that occasion, following discussions and a number of interviews, it was agreed that neither the company nor Mr Carroll would be prosecuted on the clear undertaking given by him that they would remove all offending items for sale and cease and desist. He was put on clear notice that his offending was wrong."
Mr Duffy said some items removed from the online shop may have "erroneously" made their way back onto the website, and that an order from a customer would trigger an automated process where t-shirts were printed by a third party. But the prosecutor added: "The company came to know the material had been uploaded, even if in error, and continued to trade in these items."
Jonathan Underhill, defending, said that the enterprise had been run at a loss other than one year when it made profits of around £4,000 and is now largely defunct. He told the court: "It is highly likely that there was an erroneous upload and material previously removed following the initial investigation, but it is accepted that items were sold.
"That is more likely to have been due to a lack of oversight and management rather than a systematic attempt to damage copyright holders. This has been an incredibly stressful two or three years.
"They have been dealing with this for a significant period of time. They would like resolution to this, but they are also incredibly concerned about the imposition of fines which are impossible for the company to meet as it is only going to cause more difficulty and stress."
T-Shirt Subway pleaded guilty to 12 Trading Standards offences and was handed a fine of £11,900. Charges against Carroll were ordered to lie on the file.
Sentencing, Judge Louise Brandon said: "There could be no doubt that this was criminal offending. The company was responsible for offending in circumstances where it had received a previous warning.
"I am entirely satisfied there was some degree of organisation or planning. Trademark offences undermine reputable companies and they are greedy offences."
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