Europe's biggest video pirate jailed

A businessman who organised Europe's biggest pirate video operation was jailed yesterday after he admitted defrauding the film industry of millions of pounds.

Allen Watts, 56, flooded high street stores with counterfeit videos almost indistinguishable from the real thing.

The film industry began to suspect the operation was not above board in June 2000, when blockbuster sales were dropping and stores started selling videos at unfeasibly low prices.

Watts, of Attleborough, Norfolk, was sentenced to three years and 11 months in prison by a judge at Norwich crown court yesterday after previously pleading guilty to two offences of conspiring to defraud the film industry.

From a warehouse in Norfolk, Watts flooded the market with about 500,000 counterfeit copies of videos; the films included The Matrix, Saving Private Ryan, and Gladiator. David Groome, prosecuting, said these pirate videos were of the highest quality ever seen.

In the summer of 2000, following the falling sales and cheap high street prices, film industry investigators began inquiries. They discovered a small number of counterfeit videos that could only be distinguished from the real thing by a trained eye.

The fakes were traced back to Covroc UK, a firm which had Watts as managing director. When police raided Watts's home and a Covroc warehouse in the Norfolk countryside, the huge scale of the operation became apparent.

Inside the warehouse, police discovered 712 video recorders connected together to provide a large duplicating facility. Beside them lay 206 new video recorders waiting to be placed on shelves.

In Watts's home they discovered 700,000 blank video cassettes and at Covroc's shop in Thetford, Norfolk, police found 184 video recorders set up to copy films.

Covroc legitimately copied low-budget videos on subjects such as fishing, but Watts also used it as a front for the biggest counterfeit video operation in Europe. High street stores such as WH Smith, HMV, and the Co-op unwittingly stocked films Watts had sold to an unsuspecting legitimate distribution company.

Sentencing Watts, the judge, Paul Downes, said: "These cases show sustained and organised dishonesty at quite a sophisticated level. Attention to detail was quite remarkable. It amounted to running a series of production factories, quite deliberately designed to fool the public. It must have caused immense loss."

While he was on bail awaiting trial for the first offence of defrauding the film industry, Watts continued the fraud. The police, acting on a tip-off, found a second pirating operation in Suffolk. When they raided the factory they caught Watts sticking counterfeit labels on pirate copies of Lord of the Rings.

Mr Groome said Watts gained at least £2m from this activity, used to fund a lavish lifestyle.

A spokesman for the Federation of Copyright Theft said: "Serious intellectual property crime has long since abandoned the persona of the cheeky market trader or everyman's Robin Hood. We now face organised and sophisticated criminals."

Another man, Keith Cranston, 40, of Brandon, Suffolk, pleaded guilty to one offence of conspiracy to defraud and will be sentenced next year.

Hollywood studios will now continue a civil case in the high court against Watts.