According to Prosecutor David Bennett, Hussain was stood outside the restaurant where he works in Longton (an area of Stoke-on-Trent) having a cigarette when a transit van pulled up at 5.45pm on March 14.
He told Stoke-on-Trent court this week that "the defendant got out of the van and offered to sell the complainant an iPhone."
"Almost immediately he realised the phone was counterfeit and completely useless", he told the court.
According to the This is Staffordshire newswire, Hussain reported the incident the police, who stopped the driver – William McGinley – elsewhere in the area, seizing another fake iPhone, as well as more than £260.00 in cash.
The newswire notes that McGinley – of Linehouses Caravan Site, Goldenhill – "had originally been charged with robbery in relation to the offence, along with his 19-year-old son Patrick McGinley."
"But the Crown Prosecution Service agreed to substitute the charge for one of fraud, which McGinley admitted", adds the newswire.
Dominic Shelley, defending, described McGinley Snr. as a hard-working family man who had had no criminal convictions for the last 11 years.
"He said the defendant had already been punished as he had spent 14 days on remand in custody and was having to build his business back up again from scratch as his van and goods had been held by police", says the newswire.
Infosecurity readers may be interested to note that the iPhone sold in the incident was almost certainly a near-copy originating from the Far East and, as Mr Shelley reportedly told the court: "A first glance the phone looks like an iPhone 4. These phones do work but they don't have the full capacity of an iPhone 4. This one is not made by Apple."
The court gave McGinley Snr., a two year-conditional discharge and ordered him to pay £95.00 in compensation to Hussain.