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A West End art dealer has been ordered to pay £10,000 for an "Only Fools And Horses" scam, passing off cheap prints as Victorian water- colours.
Michael Walker, 59, was found out after a victim who paid £450 for an "original" painting spotted an identical one in his Marylebone gallery.
It later emerged that Walker, of Michael Walker Fine Art in Devonshire Street, had seven copies of the work - a sunset over Siena painted in 1900 by Richard Henry Wright.
When undercover trading standards officers from Westminster council approached the gallery, Walker tried to sell them an-other version of the painting for £500. At City of Westminster magistrates' court, a Victoria and Albert Museum curator confirmed both were prints worth no more than £10 each.
The victim's suspicions were raised when he noticed the "painting" was glued to a separate backing. When he returned to the gallery to complain he saw the same picture on display.
At the court hearing, Walker, who has been an art dealer for 26 years, pleaded guilty to misleading customers. He was fined £5,000 and ordered to pay costs and compensation of £4,642.14. It is believed to be the first prosecution of its kind under the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations, which came into force last year.
Westminster community safety cabinet member Daniel Astaire said: "To dupe a customer, like a character out of Only Fools and Horses, is unacceptable."
Walker, of Hampstead, told the Evening Standard he acted in good faith and was selling the pictures on behalf of someone else.
