Fans 'spent thousands on fake autographs' of Becks, Gerrard, Wilkinson and Owen

14 April 2012

Sports fans were conned into spending thousands of pounds on faked autographs of their heroes, a court heard today.

Signatures of England rugby player Jonny Wilkinson, and footballers David Beckham, Steven Gerrard, Michael Owen, and Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson, were "systematically" forged and sold by businessmen Graeme Walker and Faisal Madani, a jury at Chester Crown Court was told.

Beckham: autographs 'were forged'

Walker, 45, is accused of more than 50 counts of cheating the customers of his shop, Sporting Icons Limited, which has a store in Chester city centre and also operates on the internet site eBay.

Madani, 43, described in court as the "middle man", faces 20 counts of supplying the forgeries.

Andrew Thomas QC, prosecuting, opened the trial, saying: "Those charges are only a sample of the many hundreds of forged and counterfeit goods either sold or offered for sale by Sporting Icons.

"It would have been impossible to track down all the international stars and the representative bodies responsible for authenticating them."

Instead, he said, prosecutors have relied on evidence from a handwriting expert and some stars themselves, including Wilkinson, Gerrard, Owen and Jamie Carragher, who have denied signing the items.

Some of them are expected to give evidence, or have statements read to the jury, next week. Walker, of Mountain View Close, Connah's Quay, Deeside, and Madani, of Grange Road, Bramhall, Stockport, Greater Manchester, deny the charges and responsibility for producing the fakes. The pair claim the goods were bought in good faith and from reputable sources.

The jurors were told that Sporting Icons did not just sell sporting memorabilia.

In photographs of the shop and print-outs from the website, they saw framed autographs and pictures of Hollywood legends Laurel and Hardy and Rock Hudson, Sylvester Stallone as Rocky Balboa, and real-life boxing champion Muhammad Ali.

Musical stars whose autographs and pictures were on sale included the Beatles, Queen and Nat King Cole.

Mr Thomas told the jury that the bulk of the fraud took place in 2005, when England lifted the Rugby World Cup thanks to Wilkinson's drop-kick, and when Liverpool FC recorded their historic fifth Champions League victory.

He said: "The defendants were involved in selling effectively worthless items to the public.

"Customers paid premium prices - hundreds or even thousands of pounds - in the belief that they were buying genuine goods, such as items autographed by their heroes.

"The defendants, we say, betrayed the trust of the public. In short, they were ripping fans off."

Mr Thomas told the jury that in 2002 Madani had paid George Best compensation of £10,000 after he was caught selling fake autographs of the footballing legend.

He showed the jury an email in which Walker threatened the representatives of Wilkinson with court action and "exposure to the media" because the company had requested proof that the fly half's autograph, which the company was advertising for sale, was genuine.

He also told how Beckham fans, who saw Sporting Icons' adverts for an autographed picture of their idol, immediately spotted that it was a fake and reported the matter to Trading Standards, who are now prosecuting the case.

Gerrard: denied signing items

"The national side won the Rugby World Cup and Liverpool, a popular local team, won the European Cup.

"We say Sporting Icons took advantage of the lucrative market for sporting merchandise.

"Sporting Icons was systematically trading in fake goods. This is not a case of one or two rogue items slipping through the net. Of the autographed goods examined in this investigation - about 140 separate items - the overwhelming majority proved to be forgeries.

"Hundreds of other items seized from the Sporting Icons shop were found to have counterfeit trademarks."

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