A COUPLE’S trade in counterfeit goods will cost them more than £30,000 after trading standards officers got a confiscation order on their assets.

Gillian Feathers, 44, and partner Paul Mark House 40, sold fake designer clothes from firms such as Armani.

But a customer who bought a pair of designer jeans from them over the internet auction site eBay took his purchase to York trading standards, who investigated them, and the couple from Carron Crescent, Woodthorpe, later pleaded guilty to selling goods with fake trade descriptions.

They were ordered to do 120 hours’ unpaid work under a community order. Their barrister, Glenn Parsons, said they had believed the clothes to be genuine but did not have the paperwork or receipts to prove it. Under laws aimed at stopping criminals profiting from their crimes, City of York Council took the couple back to York Crown Court.

Judge Jim Spencer QC declared House had benefited by £14,143.50 and Feathers by £11,999.98.

He ordered both to pay all their benefit to the criminal prosecution authorities.

He also ordered each to pay £2,500 in prosecution costs to City of York Council.

In total, the couple will have to pay £31,143.48 within six months or face nine months in jail.

The hearing was the latest in a series of cases in which trading standards officers seek to make people who sell pirate goods over the internet, in shops or car boot sales to hand over their ill-gotten gains. Other hearings are planned in other cases.

At the sentencing hearing last autumn, Katherine Robinson, for the prosecution, told how the couple bought items of clothing from a market in Scotland, but had no invoices or receipts for the transactions. House dealt with internet transactions and Feathers with packaging.

Mr Parsons said the market where the couple bought their stock did sell genuine items and “high-end” counterfeit goods.

“They are hardworking, honest people who have worked hard all their lives,” he said “This is a great shock to them to find themselves in court at their age.”