A HARROW man has been jailed for illegally recording and flogging Hollywood blockbusters for the “kudos” in a UK first.

Emmanuel Nimley filmed big name hits, including,Alice in Wonderland and Green Zone on his iPhone the day they came out at the Vue Cinema, in Harrow Town Centre, in March.

The 22-year-old, of Lincoln Road, then uploaded the recordings to file sharing website www.silverscreen.com, where viewers can access the material free of charge.

He made no money from the fraud but users of the site give feedback on the quality of the uploads, and how early they emerged, and contributers battle each other for ratings.

Film company representatives say the actions of people like Nimley not only rob the industry of around £500m a year but also put jobs at risk.

Sentencin Nimley to six months, Judge Anderson said: “It may be supposed in some quarters, particularly amongst young people, that this sort of thing is all a bit of harmless fun and a film being shown in the cinema is fair game.

“Nothing could be further from the truth.”

He added: “This was a deliberately planned and executed case of offending which I have no doubt would have continued had you not been caught.”

Harrow Crown Court heard how the low quality footage Nimley recorded on his iPhone included the sounds of him eating and drinking, and at times the mobile moved around.

He was caught after a Federation Against Copyright Theft (FACT) investigation traced the footage back to the Vue Cinema, in the St George's Centre using unique watermarks put on each roll distributed.

Staff at the venue saw him sitting for the entire duration of a film with the handset up to his neck, even when sipping a drink and eating.

Officers from Harrow's town centre police team arrested him as he tried to record a screening of the The Bounty Hunter on March 17.

He admitted making the recordings he was accused of and told officers he also filmed a showing of The Crazies.

Kieran Sharp, director general of FACT, described the sentence as “groundbreaking” and said he hoped it would have a deterrent affect on other people thinking of committing similar offences.

He said: “People think film companies can stomach the loses. If you take it away from the big stars it will come back to all the people working on the film, particularly the UK films.

“If you think of that list of credits at the end of a film, there's thousands of people involved and it's their livelihood at stake.”