AN ONLINE trader and prisons campaigner was caught with a stash of fake clothes.

Consumer watchdogs became suspicious when they spotted designer wear and sportswear being sold at particularly low prices, Pennine magistrates were told.

When trading standards officers raided the Burnley home of Carol Pounder, they found a haul of 79 garments and just under a dozen pairs of fake major label shoes.

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Pounder, of Greenock Close, was fined £210, with £110 costs and a £21 victim surcharge after she admitted three offences of selling falsely trade-marked goods.

Related aiding and abetting charges involving her 22-year-old daughter Laura Rickwood, of Melrose Avenue, were withdrawn.

Nicholas McNamara, prosecuting on behalf of Lancashire trading standards, said officers attended Pounder’s home on September 23 last year and discovered the counterfeit goods in Miss Rickwood’s bedroom.

Pounder pleaded guilty to specimen charges involving an Adidas tracksuit, sweatshirt and pair of shirts, Ugg boots and Nike trainers.

Representatives from the affected companies confirmed the trademarked goods were fakes.

“These offences are committed at a cost to genuine manufacturers and retailers who find it difficult to compete with these counterfeits,” added Mr McNamara.

David Lawson, defending, said Pounder’s operation was “not sophisticated” and had been carried out because she was short of cash.

Her only income was through benefits, including a carer’s allowance for her daughter, who had a number of difficulties.

The defendant recalled the clothes retailers of Cheetham Hill, from her youth, and decided to sell on some of their cheap merchandise via Facebook.

Pounder has been an ardent prisons campaigner fafter the death of her 14-year-old son, Adam Rickwood, in a secure facility in the north-east in 2004. He is one of the youngest inmates to die in custody in the UK.