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::THE LOOK – adventures in rock and pop fashion:: » Banksy con men ordered to pay £24,000 to victims


Banksy con men ordered to pay £24,000 to victims

Last Wednesday (July 13) at a confiscation hearing at Kingston Crown Court, Grant Champkins-Howard and Lee Parker – who were convicted last year for selling fake artworks in the style of Banksy – were ordered to pay £24,000 as part of a confiscation order issued under the Proceeds of Crime Act.

The money will be paid in compensation to victims of the duo’s online scam, which netted them more than £80,000.

At their trial last year, Champkins Howard and Parker denied conspiracy charges of copying and embellishing punk-era clothing designs by Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne Westwood and possessing articles for use in fraud. The court ordered that these charges should lie on file.

At the July 13 hearing, the court heard how the pair earned £83,000 by targeting collectors via eBay and online message boards.

Both had previously been given suspended sentences, community service orders and were banned from selling on the internet after pleading guilty to conspiracy to defraud at Kingston in July 2010.

Champkins-Howard is estimated to have realisable assets amounting to £15,000 in the form of authentic punk clothes from the McLaren/Westwood shops Sex and Seditionaries, while Parker has original artworks by Banksy among his assets of £9,000.

The pair – dubbed “old-fashioned con-men” by Judge Suzan Matthews at the trail last year – face jail terms if they do not comply with the confiscation order.

NORITAKA TATEHANA

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