A BURNLEY man caught trying to buy goods with a fake Irish £50 note in a Welsh supermarket has been branded “thoroughly dishonest”.

Martin Maughan presented the counterfeit currency at Asda in Flint before he claimed he “dashed off” to get a second opinion after staff refused to take the money for goods worth £12.

The note appeared to have been misprinted and cut off along one edge, while there was no watermark or security thread.

Sentencing Maughan to six months in prison, suspended for 12 months, District Judge Lewis Jones said he did not accept Maughan’s claim that he did not know it was a fake.

“It was a deliberate, dishonest attempt and it strikes at the root of commercial life,” said Mr Jones.

“You knew what you were doing and passed the forged note knowing it was counterfeit when you had British money you could have used.”

Flintshire Magistrates Court heard Maughan, 25, of Lindsay Street, Burnley, had been released from a custodial sentence only last September, imposed at Preston Crown Court for offences of going equipped, dangerous driving and driving while disqualified.

He had denied tendering as genuine a thing knowing it was a counterfeit of a currency note in Flint on February 19 but was found guilty after a trial at the court at Mold, Flintshire.

Maughan also admitted obstructing a police officer in the execution of his duty on the same day.

Maughan said he sold a car while he was in Ireland for £530 and only one of the notes he received was counterfeit. He said he was convinced it was real.

Police who stopped him nearby found him in possession of the fake note as well as some genuine English currency.

He went on to give officers several false addresses.

The district judge also gave Maughan a curfew between the hours of 7pm and 7am and ordered him to pay £620 costs and a victim surcharge of £115.