A PIRATE CD salesman who made up to £400 an hour selling illegally made discs on the streets of Swindon has avoided a jail sentence.

Shaun Clarke, 29, admitted more than 100 offences after he was caught selling fake music, film and game CDs from market stalls in June last year.

Sitting at Gloucester Crown Court, Judge Jamie Tabor QC told the defendant he would have gone to prison if he had appeared before him last November.

Instead the case was delayed and Clarke, of Park St, Trowbridge, took the chance to turn his life around and land himself a job with a computer firm.

Hearing Clarke was now so vital to the company it would close without him, Judge Tabor fined the defendant £1,350 and ordered him to complete 200 hours' unpaid work in the community.

The court was told Clarke had been approached by undercover trading standards officers as he manned a stall in Gloucester market on June 1 last year. Clarke was arrested and 528 discs were seized. The next day Clarke was spotted on a similar stall in Swindon's Link centre.

Swindon trading standards officers raided the stall with the help of police on June 16. Around 560 discs were seized.

In total Clarke admitted 22 offences under the trademarks act, three of offering to supply goods without a classification certificate, and two of offering to supply goods with a false trade description. He asked for 101 similar offences to be taken into consideration by the court.

The court was told the defendant had not been sentenced earlier because of delays in getting expert evidence concerning the seized discs. Clarke was also ordered to pay £500 each to Gloucester City Council and Swindon Borough Council.