Michael Hornung, 38, of Hyde, has pleaded not guilty to the counts

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A man allegedly sold unauthorised set top boxes enabling illegal access to TV subscriptions including Sky and Virgin, a trial has heard. Michael Hornung, 38, is accused of selling unauthorised decoders; selling articles for use in fraud and advertising unauthorised decoders for sale.

Mr Hornung, of Hyde, denies the allegations and is currently on trial at Minshull Street Crown Court. Jurors were told at the start of the hearing that Mr Hornung was not present and not represented and ‘that is his choice’.

The court heard that Mr Hornung is accused of ‘creating and supplying’ the TV boxes so that his customers can ‘avoid’ having to pay the subscription for broadcasting services such as Sky, BT and Virgin. It was said that he operated the business by supplying the equipment so that customers could get access to the Pay TV channels without paying for it, and instead he charged his customers a fee.

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Acting on behalf of the Federation Against Copyright Theft (F.A.C.T), prosecutor Ari Alibhai said that broadcasting services, such as Sky, provide a set top box for customers, which includes the box itself, cables and a smart card. He said the smart card is used to access certain channels depending on the type of subscription paid for.

“Control words can be used to unscramble certain channels, which can sometimes come up on the television reading ‘Channel not available’,” he said. “There are two methods of obtaining unlawful access, the first is by obtaining these control words which can be extracted and posted onto the internet.

“And the other is using equipment to find those control words and pretending to be a legitimate box. This equipment can use the internet to find the control words usually by way of a smart code.”

Mr Alibhai explained that this type of fraud is called ‘top box piracy’, of which F.A.C.T were investigating, alongside Greater Manchester Police, from 2014 to 2017. In particular they were looking into an account called ‘nohatsnotrainers’, which was advertising and selling the decoder set top boxes in order to give others access to the Pay TV without paying the broadcaster, jurors were told.

The username ‘nohatsnotrainers’ was advertising the devices on a website called ‘CS-world’, also known as ‘card sharing’ which is the colloquial term for control word sharing, the prosecutor said. One police officer who was investigating the case did a test purchase of the device, it was said.

“There was an advert making it clear that the username would email the electronic files to the customer to enable them access. This box was used to access Virgin without the smart case, but the control words taken from the internet were used to access the channels,” Mr Alibhai said.

Various screenshots were taken both by F.A.C.T and GMP investigators making it clear what was being offered to enable the unauthorised access to the Pay TV, it was said. Between 2014 and 2017, the account ‘nohatsnotrainers’ posted 1,000 messages online about the boxes, the court heard.

These included various deals for Sky and money off for certain broadcasting services, jurors were told. The username was allegedly attributed to Mr Hornung.

In February 2017, Mr Hornung was arrested, and a number of computers, servers, memory sticks, a mobile phone, set top boxes and control word sharing cards were seized from his address, the prosecutor said. The various devices were examined and found chat threads between ‘nohatsnotrainers’ and their customers, which demonstrated the devices being sold and the configuration of the equipment, the court heard.

There was also evidence of ‘nohatsnotrainers’ being a member of the ‘For Sale and Swap in Denton’ Facebook group, and the person who had admitted them to the group was Mr Hornung, it was said.

Mr Hornung, of Rowanswood Drive, denies the three allegations.

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