A Workington man was given a 15 month suspended jail sentence at Carlisle Crown Court today for his part in a counterfeiting operation.
Peter Rumney, aged 39, from Corporation Road, Workington, pleaded guilty to two specimen charges of copying films, music and computer games contrary to the Trade Marks Act 1994, and two similar offences contrary to the copyright designs and patents act 1988. He also pleaded guilty to three specimen offences against the Video Recordings Act 1984 of possessing unclassified (pornographic) films with a view to supply.
These matters came to light following information received by Cumbria County Council Trading Standards from the Atomic Energy Police at BNFL.
Cumbria County Council’s Trading Standards Officers and the Police entered Rumney’s home on 9 June 2004 and seized over 3000 discs, two tower PCs and three CD writing towers. CD writing packages were installed on both computers, allowing the user to produce copies of CDs and also to facilitate the conversion of standard CDs to MP3 format and vice versa. Analysis of the computers revealed over 700 documents that appeared to be lists of music CDs, DVD/VCD films including pornographic material, computer software and games. Over 2,700 graphic files were recovered from the computers as were over 10,000 MP3 music files.
Phil Ashcroft, Head of Cumbria County Council’s Trading Standards, said:
"Peter Rumney was a big player in the counterfeiting world. I believe that he was acting with others to supply large quantities of counterfeit discs to people in West Cumbria. I am pleased with the sentence handed down and hope that it acts as a deterrent to others."
Michael Rawlinson, Deputy Director General of ELSPA commented:
"This result highlights the very real threat of criminal prosecution and a criminal record to anyone tempted to become involved in the illegal copying of computer and video games software. ELSPA would like to thank Cumbria Trading Standards for all their hard work in this investigation."
Anthony Briscoe from Lorton Avenue, Workington pleaded guilty to five offences relating to counterfeit software. He was given a 150 hour community punishment order and ordered to pay £7000 prosecution costs.