Street trader charged pounds 10 for trinkets

A STREET TRADER who charged tourists pounds 10 for sets of cheap fake gold jewellery was ordered to pay a fine and costs totalling more than pounds 200 yesterday.

After the hearing the trader, Oliver Wain-Ferns, said the jewellery - which cost him pounds 1.84 a set - was easy to sell to gullible tourists. 'But I find the English even more gullible than the tourists. They snap them up.'

Horseferry Road court in central London was told that Wain- Ferns, 31, of James Street, Marylebone, was arrested while trading illegally outside Harrods in Knightsbridge in the run-up to Christmas.

The magistrate, Roger Davis, said to him: 'You make a very large profit, don't you? And this stuff is very cheap, isn't it?

'Each item is only worth about 1p, and I know that from a recent case I had.'

Wain-Ferns, who admitted six counts of obstructing the footway and trading without a licence, replied: 'They're worth a bit more than that.'

He was fined pounds 144 with pounds 60 costs, and was ordered to pay outstanding fines of pounds 275 at pounds 10 a week.