R v Priestly (Ronald William)

Date

22 December 1995

Legislation

Trade Marks Act 1938 ss.58A(1)(b), 58A(1)(d)
Criminal Justice Act 1988 s.71
Powers of Criminal Courts Act 1973 s.43

Keywords

criminal offences; trade mark offences; sentencing; counterfeit goods; financial penalty; deprivation orders

Counsel

V Temple QC and I Buchanan for Priestly

Solicitors:

unknown

Judge:

The Lord Chief Justice, Waterhouse and Hidden JJ.

Court:

Court of Appeal (Criminal Division)

Reported:

[1996] 2 Cr App R (S) 144

Summary:

Priestly was convicted of 13 counts following a two week trial at Leeds. Two of those counts were of conspiracies to apply marks to goods identical to or nearly resembling registered trademarks of goods, together with the distribution of goods bearing such marks. The remaining 11 counts alleged the use of trademarks contrary to sections 58A(1)(b) and (d) of the Trademarks Act 1938. On the counts of conspiracy the appellant was sentenced to four years' imprisonment and in respect of each of the remaining counts he was sentenced to two years' imprisonment, all the sentences to run concurrently.

An order under s71 of the Criminal Justice Act 1988 was also made in the sum of £94,000, with a provision that Priestly should serve a further period of two years' imprisonment in default of payment. There were also orders under s43 of the Powers of Criminal Courts Act 1973 and deprivation orders in respect of a sewing machine, a computer and two separate amounts of cash totalling £35,255. The total financial penalties amounted to £129,255. Priestly appealed against sentence with the leave of the Full Court.

The prosecution case was that the appellant was the prime mover in a fraud on the public to produce and sell convincingly packaged and labelled household name perfumes and clothing as genuine. That combination of operations was carried out between August 1989 and the beginning of 1992. The operations were conducted largely in cash and mainly from the matrimonial home of Priestly and his wife at Colston, Leeds. A considerable quantity of perfume was held at their house and also at two flats in Dock House, Leeds.

Apart from their major activity of sales from the premises Priestly and his wife also carried on a smaller scale operation with a quantity of counterfeit Reebok International Limited clothing and the wife sold perfume herself separately.

It appears that the distribution of these goods by the appellant began some time in or about the year of 1984. It was not until 1991 that he began to manufacture and produce the perfume himself. False trademarks were applied to the goods and the packaging.

The whole operation was planned for the consumer public who would buy at the end of the chain, but the appellant's case was that all his sales were to middlemen or wholesalers who knew that the goods were counterfeit. Perfumes were marked in such a way that they appeared to be "Chanel No. 5", "Chanel No. 19", "Coco" from Chanel, "Giorgio Beverly Hills" and "Opium" from Yves Saint Laurent. The false trademarks on the clothing were applied with a computerised sewing machine.

On Priestly's own evidence he was dealing in 5,000 bottles per week. By November 1991 there were said to be 100,000 bottles. The amounts involved were considerable; funding for setting up assistance for the production of the enormous volume of counterfeit perfume came principally from a sum of £200,000 provided, in the main, by Priestly.

From the home of the appellant and his wife the police recovered nearly 1,000 bottles of "Coco", 807 bottles of "Chanel No. 5", 1,056 "Giorgio", 294 bottles of "Opium", all counterfeit. One remarkable fact was that books relating to the manufacture, sale and distribution of the products were kept and appeared to be accurate. The sewing machine was also appropriated together with printing plates and various counterfeit labels and bottle tops.

Decision

The Court of Appeal considered the effect of the confiscation order in conjunction with the custodial sentence and concluded that sentences of three years' imprisonment would have been appropriate for the two offences of conspiracy. The Court thus ordered the sentences on counts 1 and 2 of the indictment to be reduced to three years' imprisonment concurrent inter se and concurrent with the sentences of two years' imprisonment on the other counts on the indictment.