A student funding his lavish lifestyle through the sale of dodgy DVD boxsets was handed an 18-week prison sentence by magistrates.

Raj Shah, 24, of Alveston Avenue, Harrow, had been selling counterfeit discs from his bedroom via eBay and Gumtree since 2009, generating profits estimated to run into the hundreds of thousands of pounds.

When trading standards officers from Harrow Council raided his north London semi-detached house, they found an illegal warehouse of more than 900 DVDs, with an estimated value of £35,000.

The counterfeit titles, imported from China, included binge-watch hits such as The Big Bang Theory, Breaking Bad, Game of Thrones, True Blood, Walking Dead and The Wire.

Shah relied on the income from selling the pirated programmes since he started studying at 17.

So well established was the seasoned criminal’s business that Willesden magistrates took the unusual step of imposing a custodial sentence when the case was heard on September 6.

In addition to the 18-week suspended term, Mr Shah was ordered to carry out 80 hours of community service and pay costs of £2,766.

Councillor Graham Henson, responsible for community safety at Harrow Council, said: “I’m delighted that we’ve put Mr Shah out of business – for years he’s been unscrupulously preying on consumers who thought they were paying for genuine DVDs, not dodgy knock-offs.

“Mr Shah has previously had goods seized by the UK Border Force, and had numerous online accounts suspended, but at last we’ve brought the curtain down on his criminal career.”