R v Bhad (Adam Ahmed)

Date

8 December 1998

Legislation

Trade Descriptions Act 1968 s.1
Trade Marks Act 1994 ss.92, 94

Keywords

criminal offences; sentencing; threshold for custody; application of Reebok logo; counterfeit goods; limited evidence

Counsel

no counsel

Solicitors

no solicitors

Judge

Lord Bingham of Cornhill (Lord Chief Justice); Forbes, Harrison JJ.

Court

Court of Appeal (Criminal Division)

Reported

[1999] 2 Cr App R (S) 139

Summary

Bhad ran an embroidery business in Blackburn and had a number of industrial embroidery machines connected to a computer. When raided by trading standards officers a number of garments were found to be embroidered with the Reebok mark and were not genuine. Bhad's defence was that he was asked to produce the items as samples in order to procure a contract from Reebok. The jury rejected this defence and found him guilty of a total of seven offences.

Bhad was sentenced on three offences under the Trade Marks Act 1994 to a fine of £1,250 on each and four months imprisonment on four offences under the Trade Descriptions Act 1968 to run concurrently. In addition he was ordered to pay £6,000 towards the prosecution costs.

Bhad appealed against sentence by the leave of the single judge but was not represented at the appeal hearing because of difficulty over the grant of legal aid. He raised three points on appeal: that a single set of facts gave rise to all 7 counts; that the offences under the Trade Descriptions Act were not so serious as to justify a custodial sentence; and that where the same set of facts gave rise to two separate sets of offences it was not warranted to impose a custodial sentence for the less serious one (the maximum sentence under the Trade Descriptions Act being 2 years as opposed to 10 years under the Trade Marks Act).

Decision:

Held that this was a small operation and a long way from the situation where a warehouse full of fake products had been discovered. There was no evidence that Bhad was running a dishonest business and it was highly questionable that the custody threshold was indeed crossed. Accordingly the sentences on the four Trade Descriptions Act offences were quashed and no separate penalty was imposed.