Shropshire men deny fraud selling scrap CDs and DVDs

A gang sold CDs and DVDs, which should have been scrapped, for profit in a multi-million pound fraud run from Shropshire farms, a court heard this afternoon.

Warehouses at two farms were stacked with pallets of CDs and DVDs which were being sold illegally instead of being destroyed or recycled, a jury at Wolverhampton Crown Court was told.

The jury was shown footage filmed by West Mercia Police inside the barns at Common Farm near Telford and Boughton Farm near Shrewsbury.

It is alleged that a total of five barns were rented by Cary Evans, 38, to be used as warehouses for the CDs and DVDs as part of the multi-million pound fraud.

The gang is alleged to have been involved in the sale and distribution of thousands of CDs and DVDs which were sent to Newport Plastics Recycling Ltd in Shropshire and XYLO Ltd in Wiltshire by music companies to be destroyed or recycled.

In the dock at Wolverhampton Crown Court are Evans, of Longfield Terrace, Minsterley, Shrewsbury; Shaun Norton, of Powell Place, Newport; Stephen Payne, 55, of Lasborough, near Tetbury, Gloucestershire; and Michael Clent, 52, of The Oaklands, Tenbury Wells.

All four men deny conspiring together, and with others, to dishonestly distribute the discs for gain to defraud music companiesPayne also denies a charge of fraudulent trading.

The trial continues.