*The matter came before Kilrush District Court.
A JUDGE has told a 63-year old West Clare woman that “the game is up” for her selling counterfeit Louis Vuitton, Prada, Gucci, Alexander McQueen and Victoria Secrets designer goods for knock-down prices.
At Kilrush District Court, Judge Alec Gabbett made his comment after Eileen Bracken of Woodfield Drive, Kilrush pleaded to eleven separate counts of selling or offering for sale counterfeit designer goods from her home on dates between October 31st to December 12th 2022.
The offences are contrary to the Trade Marks Act 1996 and some of the counterfeit labels that Ms Bracken has pleaded guilty to selling or offering for sale include Louis Vuitton, Prada, Northface, Gucci, Tommy Hilfiger, Victoria Secrets, Adidas, Alexander McQueen and Chanel.
Sgt Frank O’Grady told the court that Gardaí under warrant seized a large amount of counterfeit designer items at Ms Bracken’s home in Kilrush.
Sgt O’Grady stated that Gardaí later confirmed that Ms Bracken had no authorisation from the individual designer brands to sell the goods.
Sgt O’Grady told the court that the estimated cost of the designer items from the eleven brands was €23,170 and Eileen Bracken was selling them for €1,455 resulting in an estimated loss of €21,715 to the companies.
He said that Gardaí received statements from the different trademark companies confirming that the items Ms Bracken was selling and that she was advertising to sell were counterfeit items and she was not authorised to sell or advertise the trademark designer items.
Sgt O’Grady said that Ms Bracken has no previous convictions.
Judge Gabbett asked Ms Bracken’s solicitor, Patrick Moylan “was this entrepreneurship?”.
Mr Moylan said that Ms Bracken had purchased the goods from Turkey to sell to local people.
He said that Ms Bracken is separated with two adult children and they have significant addictions to heroin.
He said that “the family came under pressure”.
He said, “She thought this might be some new way to earn some money”.
He said that Ms Bracken has worked previously but is now on disability where she is dealing with a medical condition.
Judge Gabbett said, “The victims here are the large multinational corporations and if they don’t protect their rights and entitlements under those intellectual property laws, they lose that”.
Mr Moylan said, “The guilty plea is hugely valuable in the case because if I was to put the State through their paces, we could be here a week with witnesses coming in from far and wide from the companies concerned”.
Mr Moylan said that Ms Bracken hasn’t engaged in any selling since Gardaí seized the goods.
Judge Gabbett said that he would mark convictions in the case but stated that Ms Bracken was a good candidate for a Probation Report.
Judge Gabbett said that the Probation Report would be very helpful in terms of assessing risk of future offending.
Judge Gabbett said that there would be no requirement for a victim impact statement as “this is corporate image at the end of the day”.
Judge Gabbett adjourned the case to November 19th for the completion of the Probation Report.
