A blanket ban on selling audio-visual goods, introduced at Walton Street market in the city in a bid to stamp out pirate sales, is entering its second week.

Judge Roger Thorn QC made the comments at Hull Crown Court as he sentenced 44-year-old Robert Guiness, who had earlier admitted to five counterfeiting offences.

Judge Thorn said: "The market has now had to be stopped. The economic crimes are not to be treated lightly, albeit it seems large numbers of the public thinks there's nothing wrong buying something they might reasonably suspect are stolen goods."

The court heard that police who raided Guiness' home in Astwood Avenue, last November, discovered production on "almost an industrial scale" of thousands of counterfeit DVDs and hundreds of CDs.

The haul of more than 9,000 DVDs, as well as hundreds of CDs and MP3 discs, found in a van used by the 44-year-old and at his home address, represented a loss to the industry of £145,000.

When officers arrested Guiness – who claimed he was only producing them on a small scale – they found 300 discs on the Friday night to be sold at Craven Park the following day and another 300 for Walton Street market. He said they were being paid for by another person he refused to name and claimed the van was not his, although registration documents were found during the search.

But while he was on court bail an investigator from the Mechanical Copyright Protection Society went to Walton Street in February and bought two films from a stall manned by Guiness, secretly filming the transaction, prosecutor John Harris told the court.

Police went back to Guiness' house and discovered more computer equipment in a wardrobe downloading material from the Internet.

Mr Harris said: "He was interviewed on two occasions and said initially that the computer in the wardrobe had been hidden there to prevent it being stolen."

However, Guiness' defence counsel Christopher Dunn said the prosecution's opening didn't fairly represent the basis of plea that had been accepted by the Crown.

Guiness admitted making counterfeit DVDs, but claimed he only did it twice a week, earning just £50 a time over a two-month period and another £50 to drive the van. He claimed he had sold the van to a different person and the contents did not belong to him and he had not purchased any copying equipment.

When he was filmed in February he was manning the stall for just 20 minutes for a friend and the computer in his wardrobe was downloading films for his personal use.

Judge Thorn said it wasn't just a "bit of a Saturday job" for Guiness and to some extent he was "personally engaged" in a commercial enterprise. He was given a 12 month jail sentence, suspended for two years after the judge referred to "exceptional circumstances" set out in a pre-sentence report. Guiness must also do 120 hours unpaid work and faces further proceedings over recovery of what he made from his offences.

Hull Council said it hoped to allow genuine traders whose goods meet Trading Standards requirements back onto the market within weeks.