A YORK student apologised in court for bringing disgrace on his family, as he was ordered to pay £4,000 after dealing in pirate DVDs from the family home.

Nadeem Mohammed Sadiq pleaded guilty to six charges involving the production and supply of counterfeit film DVDs, which all bore false trade marks, dating back to November 2003. He received a £100 fine for each offence.

The 20-year-old Sheffield University student, of Maple Grove, Fulford, also admitted one charge of having his computer specially adapted for making the illegal copies, for which he was given an additional £1,000 fine.

Sadiq was also ordered to meet the £2,400 prosecution cost of bringing the case to court.

He was told his early guilty plea and full co-operation had saved him from a more severe penalty.

York Magistrates heard the Federation Against Copyright Theft - funded by the film industry to tackle piracy - alerted the City of York Council to Sadiq's activities after discovering two email addresses being used to provide pirate copies.

Stuart Benson, food and safety unit manager for City of York Council, which brought the case, said a trading standards officer emailed one of the addresses and received a list of available DVDs in reply.

He placed an order for four films which he received within days. They included the League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen and Too Fast Too Furious.

The officer then received a new list of DVDs and ordered a further six films.

A warrant was executed to search Sadiq's home, where a package containing the requested films was found including Kill Bill II, Intolerable Cruelty and American Pie The Wedding, all falsely bearing registered trademarks.

Sadiq's computer was seized and an examination revealed commercial films had been sold from it.

Sadiq said he had been selling counterfeit DVDs since July 2003 and thought he had made about £3,000 although the prosecution argued the sum was more likely to top £9,000.

John Ratfliff, mitigating, said: "It started out as a bit of fun but all of a sudden it snowballed. He is very ashamed of the fact that he appears before court because of the disgrace he will bring on his family. He apologises for wasting court time and publicly to his family for the trouble and inconvenience this has caused."

Updated: 12:37 Saturday, November 20, 2004