A clothing firm flogged tens of thousands of pounds of counterfeit U2, Foo Fighters and Nickelback t-shirts.
Prescot-based T-Shirt Subway sold branded band, television show and movie tops online in breach of trademarks, continuing to do so even after receiving a cease and desist warning from Trading Standards. Pictures of goods purchased by St Helens Company from the company as part of its investigations reveal that it also offered fake Led Zeppelin, The Clash and Pink Floyd tees.
Liverpool Crown Court previously heard that the probe revealed 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 inquiries.
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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 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.
The ECHO understands that the company will also be required to pay £40,000 in court costs. Cllr Jeanie Bell, St Helens Council's cabinet member for safer, stronger communities, said: "The defendant company was given every opportunity to amend its illegal trading practices, even signing a legal undertaking to do so.
"It chose to ignore the advice from Trading Standards, and now has paid the penalty for this. Supplying counterfeit goods not only undermines those reputable traders selling officially licensed products, but copied goods tend to be of poor quality and, with items such as toys for example, can even be dangerous."
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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