A COUPLE have been spared jail for their part in a con in which thousands of pounds worth of fake designer goods were sold on the website eBay.

Teesside Crown Court heard that former travelling shoe salesman Mark Kinder turned to selling counterfeit watches, clothing, and other items after he lost his driving licence as a result of a drinkdrive offence and could not meet mortgage repayments on the £850,000 home in Wynyard, near Stockton, which he previously shared with his common-law wife and businesswoman Helen Parkin.

Prosecuting, at Teesside Crown Court, Richard Bennett said that £31,085 passed through various eBay accounts belonging to Kinder relating to sales of counterfeit goods between May 2004 and December 2007.

He said Parkin, who ran a legitimate shoe shop business, provided her partner with banking facilities and also helped with packaging goods and keeping a ledger containing details of sales and customers.

She also made a number of money transfers via Western Union to suppliers of counterfeit goods in China that they had ordered.

Mr Bennett said officers from North Yorkshire Trading Standards, and also trading standards in Stockton, made a number of test purchases of the items which were examined and verified as counterfeit.

Police and trading standards raided the couple’s home on December 13 2007, seizing a substantial amount of counterfeit goods which were found in boxes all over the property.

Kinder, 36, now of Burn Wood Court, Long Newton, Stockton, admitted a total of 21 offences of possessing and supplying counterfeit goods.

He also admitted four counts of money laundering, transferring money from internet Paypal accounts into bank accounts of third parties and then back to himself.

Parkin, 47, of Greenfield Drive, Eaglescliffe, admitted two counts of money laundering.

The pair had since split.

Judge Peter Armstrong gave Kinder an eight month jail sentence, suspended for two years, and said he would have carry out 200 hours unpaid work in the community.

Parkin was given a community order consisting of 100 hours unpaid work.