THE boss of a company that has been distributing “Bernhardos” charity sacks around Bournemouth has insisted his organisation is genuine.

As reported in the Daily Echo, the white bags were delivered to homes in Boscombe and Pokesdown earlier this week. Trading Standards have warned people against filling them while it investigates.

The company is registered as Sparco Ltd in Bristol, but is not registered as a charity.

Now its manager, Darius Kaminskas, has told the Daily Echo that Bernhardos is not a bogus charity.

However, yesterday, Daily Echo readers contacted us to say that the company was now distributing leaflets asking for donations for breast cancer sufferers in Lithuania.

Mr Kaminskas said: “We support St Pranciskus Asyzietis parish in Lithuania. In our language our name is ‘Bernardinai’; we translated the word into English and got the name ‘Bernhardos’.

“Many people think that we’ve copied ‘Barnardo’s’ charity name, but this is not true.”

Linda Cram, who lives in Alderney, Poole, had a breast cancer leaflet delivered to her home yesterday. It had Sparco Ltd’s details on it.

She said: “I thought it was the same people and they’re trying a different way to do it.”

Simone McDevitt, of Albion Road, Christchurch, received a leaflet asking for donations to be left out on Monday.

Mr Kaminskas said the organisation did not yet have a charity number as it had only just begun work. He added that it planned to stop using Bernhardos bags to avoid problems.

Its website – sparko-ltd.co.uk – makes it clear that there is no association with Barnardo’s, the well-known UK children’s charity.

Mr Kaminstas referred to another website, bernardinai.lt, which appears to be about the St Pranciskus Asyzietis parish.

He also showed the Echo several documents, translated into English. One was an agreement with Priest A Peskaitis to transfer £50 for every tonne of clothes it collects to the parish, another showing an HSBC bank transfer set up to send cash and a third showing that Sparco Ltd is an “official supporter” of St Pranciskus Asyzietis (Bernhardos) parish.

The documents are dated August 12, 2010.

Earlier this week children’s charity Barnardo’s distanced itself from the Bernhardos bags, saying its own were clearly identifiable.