A fraudster made thousands of pounds selling fake Poppy Appeal and Help For Heroes pins.

Jay Meech deceived the public into thinking they were making charity donations but he was in fact pocketing the cash for himself.

Meech, 28, also sourced and sold counterfeit badges of Premier League clubs including Manchester United, Arsenal, Chelsea and Southampton.

Records from his Paypal account showed Meech ripped off the charities and Premier League clubs to the tune of around £22,000, Portsmouth Crown Court, Hampshire, heard.

Jonathan Underhill, prosecuting, said Meech sold the fake pins, made in China and shipped to the UK, through a website he ran for six years.

During that time, £95,000 went through his account.

However, he was rumbled when the Premier League had suspicions the football pins, which cost him just over £33 to set up a mould with the factory, were fake.

Officers from Trading Standards ordered Southampton and Chelsea badges and found that the information from the Premier League was correct.

Meech had also sent them a copy of his business card so they stormed his home in Gosport, Hampshire, in October 2013 shortly before Remembrance Sunday.

During the search, they discovered 5,849 Poppy Appeal badges, 706 Help for Heroes badges and over 1,000 badges of the well-known football clubs, the court heard.

Of the £22,000 made through the sales of the badges, around two-thirds of this went to Meech and £3,000 of the money accounted for was from sales of the charity pins.

Meech admitted 10 counts of unauthorised use of a trademark and was handed an eight-month prison sentence, suspended for two years, and told to pay £1,650 in costs.

Judge Roger Hetherington said: "You started off honestly trading legitimate badges, but at some point greed got the better of you because of the profit you could get by sourcing the badges from China which showed some considerable planning.

"This was a fraudulent activity which made you a sizeable sum of money."

In mitigation, the court heard Meech had made a donation of £600 to each charity.

Councillor Roy Perry, Leader of Hampshire County Council, said: "It's despicable that anyone could think of profiting to the detriment of two such worthy charities, particularly when we have been remembering the sacrifices of our armed forces now, and 100 years ago with the commemorations of the start of the First World War.

"These kinds of criminal activities severely damage the local economy and legitimate traders by gaining a competitive advantage at their expense, and taking trade away from genuine hard-working businesses, and in this case charities."

Officials from the two charities also slammed Meech for his fraud, describing the targeting of charities to make money as 'despicable'.

Jo Brookes, from Help for Heroes, said: "He deceived the public into thinking that by purchasing one, they were helping servicemen."

Richard Dickson, president of Gosport and Alverstoke Royal British Legion in Hampshire, added: "Cheats like this need to be brought to justice and there's no more despicable a crime than targeting charities."