A UK man who copied hardcore gay porn DVDs in his living room set up a website to sell them in the UK and abroad, a court heard yesterday. Dennis Capstick, who was unable to meet the demands of his creditors out of his disability benefits, imported unclassified movies from the United States and sold copies for a profit of £3 (NZ$8) a time, Harrogate magistrates were told. The activities of Capstick, 46, came to the attention of North Yorkshire Trading Standards Department – for the second time in two years – after a tip-off from officials of the Medical and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency who were investigating items offered for sale on Capstick's website. Trading standards prosecutor Alex Lynn told the court Capstick had been convicted of nine counts of offering unclassified videos for sale and one of breaking rules which allow adult material to be sold only from licensed sex shops, which do not exist in the Harrogate district, in November 2004 and had been ordered to do 100 hours of unpaid community work. It had been claimed he had made almost £17,000 (NZ$47,372) from sales during the eight months before his home in Kingsley Park Road, Harrogate, was raided. When investigators made their second visit to the house last July, it became clear the offences were continuing. Mr Lynn said envelopes containing unclassified movies with titles like Bareback Fantasies, Hot Sweaty Knights and KC and Billy's Wild Adventures were ready for posting. Capstick admitted do-it-yourself production of the DVDs by copying them on his home computer and selling them via a website he had created and maintained. But he contended the movies were all freely available in the US. When Capstick pleaded guilty to six charges of possessing unclassified DVDs for supply his solicitor Clive Farndon said he had not worked for some time, was claiming incapacity benefit and had got into financial difficulties. He had ''a substantial amount of debt'' and was being pursued by creditors. So he bought DVDs over the internet and got involved in his own ''fairly modest'' enterprise. ''They cost him about £5 to produce and he was making £3 profit per DVD,'' said Mr Farndon. Capstick was ordered to do 150 hours of unpaid work and pay £1,247.94 costs. His computer and the seized DVDs will be destroyed. Ref: Yorkshire Post (m)
Credit: GayNZ.com News Staff
First published: Wednesday, 21st February 2007 - 12:00pm