There are a great many people in this world defrauding the system right now. People claiming to be unable to work, collecting government benefits, and yet they are actually able to do more than they are letting on. But most of them have the common sense to try not to be so public about what they can and cannot do. But not this guy. No, this ghost hunter – who cannot work, naturally – produced counterfeit porn.
Our second nominee for “Douche of the Year.”
A GHOST hunter who produced counterfeit sex DVDs has been resentenced. Shaun Langley, who runs ghost-hunting tours in “haunted” properties across the area for charity, has been brought back to court to be resentenced for his part in the city’s largest pornographic DVD counterfeiting ring.
Benefit claimant Langley, 49, was sentenced to undertake 150 hours of unpaid work, but due to various illnesses was told he could not complete the work in a charity shop. The Probation Service said it was unable to insure Langley during his unpaid work due to him receiving sick notes from his doctor claiming he was unfit to work.
The judge in the case, however, questioned how he was unable to complete the unpaid work yet still hunt ghosts in his spare time. Judge Jeremy Richardson QC has now withdrawn the community work and imposed a curfew from 7pm to 7am.
He told Langley: “The Probation Service had wanted to put you in a charity shop and here you are doing bizarre charity nights. This cannot go on. If you are unfit for work, you are unfit for work.”
Langley was one of four men who ran a porn factory in Hull, producing and distributing counterfeit DVDs worldwide.
Hull Crown Court heard dozens of customers complained about the poor quality of the recordings.
The scam was run by Fred Thompson, of Conway Close, west Hull, in partnership with Shaun Langley.
The defendants copied fake DVDs at a factory in St George’s Road, west Hull, and had industrial machines to print fake packaging for them.
They then sold illicit and unauthorised copies by mail order and over the internet.
Trading Standards officers raided the factory found and found two large blue storage containers full of illegal DVDs.
Officers found letters from customers complaining the films were not as long as they were supposed to be and were of poor quality.
A jury convicted Langley and others of conspiracy to make, distribute and defraud customers by producing illegal porn DVDs following a three-week trial.
In the same raid, officers also uncovered the city’s first counterfeiting currency scam, which saw more than £22,000 of fake notes produced.
The former Adultnation sex shop, in Hull’s Beverley Road, had been transformed into a counterfeiting den producing £10, £20 and 50 euro notes.
Officers discovered notes in various stages of production and found a large stash of sheets of newly printed notes hidden under a carpet.
Langley, of north Hull, pleaded guilty to producing the notes at the shop, claiming he was working under orders from his boss.
Ghost hunting tours are, by their definition, very public things. Not too smart of Mr. Langley to use every trick in the book in order to get out of working (and, you know, contributing to society and all), but then be blatant about his ghost hunting activities. Oh, and all the counterfeit porn. Enjoy your curfew, dude!
