ALLOWING a 15-year-old to buy a sunbed session has landed a Gwent shopkeeper with fines and costs totalling almost £3,000.

David Bryn Williams, trading as Tantastic, on Blackwood High Street, was caught selling the session to a person who is underage during a test purchase operation set up by Caerphilly council's environmental health team.

Caerphilly magistrates' court was told that Williams, who was not present at the hearing, had sold the session to the teenager in November last year.

Williams was found guilty in his absence of two offences under the Sunbeds (Regulation) Act 2010 and of eight further offences under the Sunbeds (Regulation) Act 2010 (Wales) Regulations 2011.

He was ordered to pay fines totalling £2,000, prosecution costs of £924.37, and a £60 victim surcharge.

Councillor David Poole, the council's cabinet member for community and leisure services, said the conviction should act as a warning to others.

“Selling age-restricted items or services such as sunbed sessions to children is completely irresponsible, and is an issue which our enforcement teams are committed to tackling," he said.

"Conducting test purchases continues to prove effective in bringing to book the small minority of traders who fail to take their responsibilities seriously by selling age restricted items and services to young people.

“It is pleasing that the court has emphasised the seriousness of the offences in this particular case by the size of the fine it has imposed."

The law under which Williams was prosecuted was introduced in April 2011. It bans under-18s from using sunbeds in England and Wales.