Headteacher jailed for TV streaming piracy that netted £450,000
A HEADTEACHER credited with turning around a private school’s finances has been jailed for a £450,000 television piracy scam.
Paul merrell, 43, ripped off firms including Sky and Bt by selling £10-a-month software giving illegal access to subscription- only services worth up to £60 a month.
Users transferred around £450,000 into his PayPal account in just four years, a crown court heard. nearly £200,000 went to the criminal gangs hosting the streams while merrell pocketed £240,705 from 2017-2021.
He was jailed for 12 months at Birmingham Crown Court on Friday after admitting two offences under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act.
A confiscation order for £91,250 was made which is likely to result in the married father-of-one losing his £500,000 house, said his barrister. But Judge Simon Drew KC said although merrell had suffered a ‘great fall from grace’, a deterrent punishment was needed for a ‘sophisticated and persistent commercial undertaking’.
He estimated merrell had diverted up to £3million from streaming giants.
Ben mills, prosecuting for Birmingham City Council, said merrell’s ‘driving motivation was profit’ and that ‘it was blindingly obvious he knew what he was doing was likely to be criminal’.
He added it was not only the streaming companies that lost out but their customers ‘ because if there are fewer subscribers they are going to face higher costs’.
mr mills said non-profit bodies including the Football Association, which funds grassroots sport through selling TV rights, also suffered.
merrell became head at £3,000a-term elmfield Rudolf Steiner School in Stourbridge, West midlands, in 2021 and is credited with saving it, the court heard.
lee marklew, in mitigation, said he took a £14,000 pay cut to £ 56,000 to go there and persuaded staff to do the same.
the boarding school had lost six-figure sums for up to 20 years and only survived by selling land but had none left, mr marklew said. He had claimed the school was at risk of closure if merrell was jailed.
‘His motivation was profit’