Rugby league star in internet ink scam jailed

Gareth Raynor, 32, formerly of Birch Place, Brough, East Yorkshire, pleaded guilty to 14 charges including breaching trade marks and fraudulent trading at an earlier hearing.

He was sentenced to nine months at Hull Crown Court yesterday for

the counterfeiting offences, and a further six as a result

of breaching a previous suspended sentence relating to a racially aggravated common assault.

The Leeds-born winger, who played for Leeds Rhinos and Hull FC before moving to Celtic Crusaders earlier this year, ran an eBay company named Genuine Ink which sold supposedly genuine cartridges to online buyers.

Judge Roger Thorn QC told him: "You were not saying that your product was cheap and shoddy when advertising them via eBay and as such any purchaser was buying based on trust. You breached that trust. The buyers could not inspect the product until after the deal had been done.

"Thus both the buyer is a victim and also the producer of the product is the victim in loss of sales.

"Your good name was used up when you received your suspended sentence although you have being doing good things within the community."

He added: "Credit has been given for pleading guilty. If it had gone to full trial a sentence of 18 months would have been imposed."

An investigation by East Riding Council's trading standards department found that Raynor had imported second-hand cartridges from China and then repackaged them, using glossy packaging to make them look like brands including Epson, Canon and Hewlett Packard.

During a raid in August 2008, investigators found a large quantity of cartridges in the garage of his home, which he shares with partner Catriona Thomson, 27.

Forensic examination of his computers revealed emails sent by Raynor to his suppliers effectively asking that the goods appeared as genuine as possible.

Raynor, who has won six caps for Great Britain and scored the winning try in the 2006 Tri-Nations victory against Australia in Sydney, is estimated to have earned 36,654 selling about 3,000 cartridges on the auction site as well as various counterfeit computer games.

The day before sentence he appeared for Celtic Crusaders in a match at Hull Kingston Rovers.