A MAN who made more than £1,000 selling fake Oakley sunglasses online from his Darlington home has been prosecuted.

Darlington Magistrates’ Court heard today (Monday, May 9) that Fergal Hague bought the sunglasses for £5 a pair off Ebay, then sold them on at £30 a pair after advertising them as genuine Oakleys.

Trading standards launched an investigation and officers traced the seller of the glasses to a house on Brankin Drive, Darlington, but a search of the premises revealed only four pairs which Hague claimed were for his personal use.

Hague moved to Reid Street in Darlington and Yvonne Wood, for Darlington Council, told the court: “It is believed that if they (the officers) had gone to Reid Street they would have found a stack of glasses.”

Mrs Wood said that over a year-long period between October 2014 and 2015, Hague placed about £700 worth of orders for the cheap sunglasses over 32 transactions.

He went on to make more than £1,000 by selling them at a price six times higher than he paid for them.

Genuine Oakley sunglasses sell for upwards of £100 in the UK and in court, 23-year-old Hague admitted two charges of selling goods using a registered trademark that they were not entitled to bear.

Mitigating, Stephanie Thompson said Hague split with this long term girlfriend in February last year and was struggling for money after moving to Darlington from Stockton.

She said Hague believed at the time that the glasses were genuine and did not think he was doing anything wrong.

Magistrates said they did not believe that Hague truly thought that a £5 pair of sunglasses from China were genuine Oakley goods.

They fined him £80 and ordered him to pay £500 costs and a £20 victim surcharge.