UNITED KINGDOM—People still make counterfeit DVDs and they still get arrested from time to time. One such outfit was just broken up in Britain, in Hull, East Yorkshire, where a company called Fantasy Dome replicated porn DVDs that were apparently so shoddily made that police found letters from customers complaining about the abysmal quality of the video and the fact that movies were cut short. Most people were too embarresed to file official complaints, the court was told, but it was the few who did that led police to Fantasy Dome.
Following a three-week trial, four defendants were found guilty by a jury of “conspiracy to make, distribute and defraud customers by producing illegal porn DVDs.” But the ringleader doesn’t care. Convicted of not just with making counterfeit porn but also counterfeit money, Fred Thompson, 69, unapologetically told the court, “'I like to be Jack the Lad in Hessle Road. I am not ashamed of my offending. I have never hurt anybody.”
According to the Daily Mail, Thompson “was the ringleader of the operation, which saw the gang copying and distributing tens of thousands of illegal sex DVDs across the world. The scam was run by Thompson, of west Hull, in partnership with Shaun Langley.
“Nigel Maw, 52, of Newport, and his son David Maw, 31, of west Hull, had entered into an agreement to buy the mail order business from Thompson and were working there,” the Mail continued. “All of them had a financial interest in the business at the time. Hull Crown Court heard the defendants copied fake DVDs at a factory in St Georges Road, west Hull, and had industrial machines to print fake packaging for the copies. They then sold illicit and unauthorized copies by mail order and over the internet.”
According to the prosecutor, Charlene Sumnall, the issue at hand is the defrauding of the public by “defendants [who] played individual and key roles in this agreement to produce, distribute, defraud and encourage the sale of adult content material.”
She added, however, “Unsuspecting members of the public were in no position to complain to Trading Standards that they were getting shoddy discs because of the nature of the product.”
Following the guilty verdict, the judge let the men go free while he considers what sentence to impose.
“You have all been convicted and I will adjourn sentence. You can all have bail in the meantime,” Judge Mark Bury told the men. “These are serious offences for which a sentence of imprisonment may well be passed and this sentence will be immediate.”
