A TEENAGE trickster who used counterfeit 'movie' cash to pay for a car and a mobile phone has been spared jail.

Ethie Parry of North End, Pinvin, used the fake £50 notes which had printed on them 'movie use only' to pay for the items.

He ran after snatching a phone from one victim and chucking the counterfeit notes through the victim's car window.

The 18-year-old, who intended to sell the items to make 'real money', appeared before Judge James Burbidge QC who sentenced him to eight months detention suspended for 18 months.

Parry must also complete up to 20 rehabilitation activity requirement days and pay compensation of £200 to one victim and £150 to the other.

Judge Burbidge told Parry, who appeared over prison videolink, he had 'caused loss to people who no doubt can ill afford it'.

However, the judge said he had to factor in Parry's previous good character and his early guilty plea.

The punitive element of the sentence was 100 hours of unpaid work, concurrent on each of the two counts.

Parry admitted two charges of passing as genuine a thing knowing it was counterfeit of a currency note under the Forging and Counterfeiting Act 1981 when he appeared before magistrates in March.

Parry committed the offences on October 8 and October 18 in Pershore.

Owen Beale, prosecuting, said Parry used £200 of the fake notes to pay for a Ford car.

It was the man's daughter who later spotted they were counterfeit notes.

When he visited what he believed was the defendant's address nobody knew him there or next door, 'protesting no knowledge of the defendant'.

On October 18, Parry used the name 'Ethie Smith' to respond to an advert for the sale of a mobile phone from Paul Knight.

Mr Knight showed the phone through the open window of his car when the defendant arrived to buy it.

"The defendant dropped the money through the open window of the car and literally snatched the phone and started running off," said Mr Beale.

When they looked at the money the couple selling the phone realised it was not genuine.

"Mr Knight ran after the defendant but lost him," said Mr Beale.

They had intended to sell the phone to get money to buy Christmas presents for the children.

Mr Beale said in interview Parry told officers 'he knew full well the money he was using wasn't real and he had used it with the intention of buying relatively low-value items to sell on and, in the sale, he would make real money'.

He sold the car for £170 and the phone for £80.