Football Against Fakes 2025

Ben Houston has worked within the brand protection and anti-counterfeiting industry for more than 20 years, working inhouse at Manchester United and Nike, and for the past 15 years has run the brand protection agency Back Four, who in addition to representing many high profile sports and fashion brands, manage the Premier League’s Anti-Counterfeiting Programme, working with law enforcement and co-ordinating and conducting action globally. Ben is passionate about brand protection, innovation and enhancing efforts to tackle the issue of counterfeit merchandise.

PC Joshua Akred is a Metropolitan Police Officer Based in Kentish Town on the Camden Town Centre Team, leading efforts to expose and disrupt embedded criminal networks profiting off the sale of counterfeit goods. PC Akred works within the community to challenge the normalisation of crime within one of London’s most complex Borough’s.

Nity has been a member of the board of directors of Brentford Football Club since 2014 and he recently joined the board of Merida AD, a Spanish third division club, in 2025. Until recently Nity also sat on the board of Danish Supaliga club, FC Midtjylland. Nity is also a trustee of the Brentford FC Community Sports Trust, a charity using the power of Sport to do good in West London. Nity also holds an executive role within Brentford Football Club as its General Counsel. Nity trained as a solicitor, qualifying in 1999, and he holds an LL.M. in Intellectual Property Law from King’s College, London.

With 30 years’ experience working in the public sector, Andy recently joined the Intellectual Property Office from the Home Office where he was Head of the UK Central Authority (responsible for international extradition and evidence requests to the UK).

Previously with the National Crime Agency, his experience includes law enforcement, intelligence, and investigations. With responsibility for INTERPOL, EUROPOL and a number of other national and international capabilities to combat serious and organised crime, Andy has worked extensively in international fora including heading delegations at the G7 and UNODC.

Prior to the NCA, he worked for the Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA) where he spent 5 years in the British Embassy in Washington DC as the UK crime attaché to the US.  

Andy’s career started in policing, including 8 years as a detective working on a range of serious crimes including homicides and armed robberies before being seconded to the National Criminal Intelligence Service (NCIS).

He is a proud dad, married with 2 adult children and an aging Bichon Frise dog called Bella.

Daryl has been a police officer for 22 years, 20 of which has been as a Detective across a number of different units across Essex Police and the City of London Police.Daryl has been involved with IP crime on PIPCU for the last 6 years and responsible for the past three Op Bloxwich campaigns which is the PIPCU’s enforcement response to the counterfeit trade in football merchandise leading up the major football tournaments. Daryl is a long-suffering West Ham United fan.

Ben Houston has worked within the brand protection and anti-counterfeiting industry for more than 20 years, working inhouse at Manchester United and Nike, and for the past 15 years has run the brand protection agency Back Four, who in addition to representing many high profile sports and fashion brands, manage the Premier League’s Anti-Counterfeiting Programme, working with law enforcement and co-ordinating and conducting action globally. Ben is passionate about brand protection, innovation and enhancing efforts to tackle the issue of counterfeit merchandise.

Christopher Watkins is a Trading Standards Officer with over 22 years of local government service at Newport City Council and currently the Trading Standards Wales Intellectual Property Lead Officer.He holds a first-class honours degree in Policing and Investigations from the School of Criminology and Criminal Justice at the University of Portsmouth. Christopher specialises in intellectual property (IP) crime, working in close partnership with local authorities, rights holders, and law enforcement agencies to develop scalable, intelligence-led IP enforcement. He combines investigative expertise with financial enforcement tools to disrupt criminals profiting from counterfeiting. He currently serves as the co-lead of Operation Archer, a pioneering initiative funded by National Trading Standards. The operation uses civil account freezing and forfeiture powers under the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 to target online counterfeiters and seize criminal assets, setting a benchmark for IP enforcement in the UK. His work has been recognised in 2025 with The Dave Hankinson Memorial Award for Individual Excellence in Anti-counterfeiting Enforcement from The Anti-Counterfeiting Group (ACG), reflecting his commitment to innovation and impact in the field.