Men behind porn DVD empire jailed

Two men who ran a "lucrative and seedy" business selling hundreds of thousands of pornographic DVDs have been jailed for 15 months each.

The DVDs were found at the office of Tehsin Panju and Hitendra Patel.

Prosecutors estimated that a quarter of the films were obscene but the pair's defence team said it was less than 1%.

Panju, 49, from Norwood, south-east London, and Patel, 47, from Harrow, north-west London, admitted conspiracy to publish obscene material.

Panju also admitted three counts of money laundering.

Southwark Crown Court heard that Panju and Patel set up the firm Direct Media in 2002 to process orders for £8 DVDs sent to a post office box.

'Largest seizure'

Police required five lorries to remove all the DVDs from their headquarters in Shepherds Bush, west London, in July last year.

They also recovered copying equipment, a client database containing thousands of names and cash worth £41,000 in the raid.

Prosecuting, Natasha Tahta said: "This is to date the largest seizure of pornographic material the Met's Obscene Publications Squad has ever dealt with."

The primary objective was clearly to make money from what was, on any view, a lucrative and seedy business Judge Peter Fingret

Sentencing, Judge Peter Fingret said it was not possible to determine the true proportion of seized DVDs that were obscene and therefore illegal.

"However, the scale of the operation, even on the basis of a small percentage, would necessarily involve a large number of obscene DVDs," the judge said.

"I do not accept that the principal objective was to provide for the needs of your customers.

"The primary objective was clearly to make money from what was, on any view, a lucrative and seedy business."