Signatures of England rugby player Jonny Wilkinson, footballers Beckham, Owen and Steven Gerrard and Manchester United manager Alex Ferguson, were "systematically" forged and sold by businessmen Graeme Walker and Faisal Madani, a jury at Chester Crown Court was told yesterday.

Other counterfeit goods, it heard, included "poorly made" replicas of England international caps which were sold as genuine.

Walker, owner of Sporting Icons Ltd on Watergate Row, appeared at Chester Crown Court for trial after denying a number of charges of supplying goods in which a false trademark was given.

Walker, 45, of Mountain View Close, Connah's Quay, but formerly of Blacon appeared alongside former business partner Faisel Madani, 43, of Grange Road, Bramhall, Stockport, who also denies the charges against him.

Between them they face 74 charges of supplying goods in which a false trademark was given, which come under the Trademarks Act and Trade Descriptions Act.

The offences were said to have taken place between January 1, 2004 and March 8, 2006, with the majority of offences in 2005.

Walker, 45, of Mountain View Close, Connah's Quay, is accused of more than 50 counts of cheating the customers of his shop,which has a store on Watergate Row and also operates on internet auction site eBay.

Madani, 43, described in court as the "middle man", faces 20 counts of supplying the forgeries. Both deny the charges.

Andrew Thomas QC, prosecuting, opened the trial, saying: "Those charges are only a sample of the many hundreds of forged and counterfeit goods either sold or offered for sale by Sporting Icons.

"It would have been impossible to track down all the international stars and the representative bodies responsible for authenticating them."

Instead, he said, prosecutors have relied on evidence from a handwriting expert and some stars themselves, including Wilkinson, Gerrard, Owen and Jamie Carragher, who have denied signing the items.
The court heard that goods such as football caps and football shirts were sold for their "unique importance", such as a shirt allegedly worn by Owen for the 2003 Worthington Cup Final.

Mr Thomas QC said: "Michael Owen has provided a witness statement in which he has confirmed that he still has the one and only shirt which he wore during that match."

Some of the stars are expected to give evidence or have statements read to the jury, next week.

Mr Thomas said: "It is not suggested that every last item in the Sporting Icons shop was a forgery.

"We say that bogus stock was mixed with genuine stock."

Walker, and Madani, of Grange Road, Bramhall, Stockport, deny the charges and responsibility for producing the fakes.

The pair claim the goods were bought in good faith and from reputable sources.

The jurors were told that Sporting Icons did not just sell sporting memorabilia.

In photographs of the shop and print-outs from the website, they saw framed autographs and pictures of Hollywood legends Laurel and Hardy and Rock Hudson, Sylvester Stallone as Rocky Balboa, and boxing legend Muhammad Ali.

Music stars whose autographs and pictures were on sale included the Beatles, Queen and Nat King Cole.

Mr Thomas told the jury that the bulk of the fraud took place in 2005.
He said: "The defendants were involved in selling effectively worthless items to the public."

"Customers paid premium prices – hundreds or even thousands of pounds – in the belief that they were buying genuine goods, such as items autographed by their heroes.

"The defendants, we say, betrayed the trust of the public. In short, they were ripping fans off."

Mr Thomas told the jury that in 2002 Madani had paid the late George Best compensation of £10,000 after he was caught selling fake autographs of the footballing legend.

He showed the jury an email in which Walker threatened the representatives of Wilkinson with court action and "exposure to the media" because they had requested proof that the fly half's autograph, which the company was advertising for sale, was genuine.

The court was also shown a get well card sent to Walker from Madani, which was supposedly signed by Manchester United's Cristiano Ronaldo.
Mr Thomas said: "It was a card joking about Mr Walker's ability to find an 'idiot' who would have paid £300 for the card."

He added that on a search of the shop premises in June 2005 a desk was found "kitted out for signing goods, a selection of pens and specimen signatures from which copies could be made".

Mr Thomas also told how Beckham fans, who saw Sporting Icons' adverts for an autographed picture of their idol, immediately spotted that it was a fake and reported the matter to Trading Standards, who are now prosecuting the case.

Mr Thomas added: "The investigation took place over eight months in 2005, a good year for English sport."

He said that was the year that Liverpool won the UEFA Champions League, and added: "We say Sporting Icons took advantage of the lucrative market for sporting merchandise.

"Sporting Icons was systematically trading in fake goods. This is not a case of one or two rogue items slipping through the net.

"Of the autographed goods examined in this investigation – about 140 separate items the overwhelming majority proved to be forgeries.
"Hundreds of other items seized from the Sporting Icons shop were found to have counterfeit trademarks."

The trial, which is expected to last six weeks, was adjourned until today.