A MAN has been sentenced after pleading guilty to defrauding Sky out of more than £60,000.

Lee Pinney, of Lillian Grove, Ebbw Vale, was sentenced at Newport Magistrates Court on January 25, 2019, after pleading guilty to two charges under the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988 and one charge under the Fraud Act 2006.

In June 2017 Blaenau Gwent Trading Standards Officers were carrying routine inspections on Facebook buying and selling pages where they discovered an individual offering full sky packages including sports, pay per view and movies for a fraction of the cost than if purchased directly through sky.

Pinney was selling these services at £12 for one month, £30 for three months, £50 for six months and £75 for a year.

Further investigations showed he sold fully loaded set top boxes for around £200 which illegally provided access to Sky content.

Throughout a six-month period, Pinney, 38, had sold more than 150 subscriptions and made approximately £7000 through the sale of IPTV (Internet Protocol TV), an examination of PayPal records confirmed. This defrauded Sky of more than £60,000.

In November 2017 a warrant was executed at Pinney’s address where goods were seized including a laptop, mobile phones and devices used to access illegal TV streams from the internet.

These devices were subsequently subjected to forensic examination by Sky representatives.

Emails were found on both the phone and laptop showing where Pinney had agreed to supply IPTV, along with advertising material which had been posted on various social media platforms.

The prosecution stated that Pinney had used the word “Sly” instead of “Sky” when advertising through Facebook and eBay. He did this to avoid detection by Sky and clearly knew that this was illegal.

On summary, magistrates highlighted that Pinney had deliberately used the word Sly instead of Sky and clearly intended to defraud Sky of revenue.

Pinney was sentenced to 200 hours of community service and ordered to pay £1408 in costs to the investigating authority along with a victim surcharge of £85.

Councillor Garth Collier, Executive Member for the Environment said: “Subscription services and pre-loaded devices giving unauthorised access to content that is copyrighted are without question illegal.

“This sentencing sends out a very clear message that the sale of these devices is breaking the law.

“The sellers, as highlighted in this case, often misspell brand names to avoid the safeguards that protect content from being pirated, but this example proves that they can still be detected, caught and prosecuted”.