A GWENT sunbed centre owner is calling for all salons to be manned at all times - after a man was locked up yesterday for indecent assaults in an unmanned site.

Yesterday, Robert Davies, aged 19, of Buttermere Way, Newport, was sentenced to 18 months in a young off-enders institution after indecently assaulting two teenage girls in an unmanned Newport salon, the Rae of Sun on Caerleon Road, which had CCTV.

Now businessman Robert Williams, who runs three sunbed centres in Gwent, believes they should be manned for customer security and health.

He said: "Unmanned salons may have security cameras but anyone can walk in at any time. It's more dangerous without a manned service.

"It can create a major security or health problem, especially if someone collapses in the sunbed and no one is there to help.

"With unmanned sunbeds people can visit as much as they want, but because we have staff we can keep customer records to ensure no one has more than 60 sessions per year.

"Some won't wear eye protection in unmanned salons, which is something we enforce.

"In London, sunbed salons have to be manned at all times and I believe Newport should do the same."

Mr Williams has been in the business for ten years and runs the Sunshack Centres in Baneswell Road, Newport as well as Bridge Street, Blackwood and High Street, Abertillery.

Defendant Davies was found guilty at Cardiff crown court last month of the indecent assaults on March 16.

Yesterday, Hugh Wallace, defending, told the crown court: "Mr Davies is a young man who has had a very difficult upbringing.

"He has hauled himself up, not stopped, determined to make a go of his life and he has just got a job.

"It was a comparatively minor indecent assault. The assault was minor, the way he behaved was not."

Judge David Wyn Morgan said: "You had been observing the girls for some time before going to the tanning shop."

He said Davies waited until both of them were inside their respective cubicles before carrying out the assaults.

Judge Wyn Morgan said Davies would be registered as a sex offender for ten years and disqualified from working with children.

PICTURED: Sunsack Centre owner Robert Williams