A tanning salon owner could face prison after supplying dangerous sunbeds that could have electrocuted his customers.
"Obstructive" Graeme Carlton, who ran Golden Brown Sunbeds in Hartlepool. admitted six offences at Teesside Crown Court this week.
During a Hartlepool Trading Standards investigation, one of the sunbeds was found to be at risk of overheating, with an exposed live wire carrying 230 volts – nearly five times the lethal dose.
Voltage as low as 50 volts can be potentially fatal.
The case dates back to April 2018 when the team was contacted by trading standards in North Yorkshire who received a complaint about the safety of a home hire vertical sunbed supplied by Carlton.
The customer said the subbed was rusty with a nail holding its hinges together, while its "filthy" bulbs "looked as though they had never been changed".
It was condemned as dangerous after an electrical expert inspected the sunbed and found it contravened the Electrical Equipment (Safety) Regulations.
Though both trading standards teams tried to discuss their concerns with Carlton, Hartlepool Borough Council said he "had little or no interest in complying with regulations".
Both he and the company were served with a recall notice in July 2018 demanding that they recall the sunbeds amid fears he was putting the public at risk of serious injury or fire.
But the company continued to rent out home hire sunbeds on Facebook in breach of the notice.
After undertaking a "test purchase" and hiring out a sunbed from Golden Brown Sunbeds in October 2018, trading standards found it failed to comply with several safety regulations.
The council described Carlton as "obstructive", with them publishing a public safety warning about his home hire sunbeds in November 2018.
In a further test purchase by Hartlepool Trading Standards in November 2019, Carlton was caught out when he delivered the equipment in person despite claiming he had ceased trading.
An electrical engineer again found that it contravened many separate safety regulations.
Carlton pleaded guilty to four charges under the Electrical Equipment (Safety) Regulations 2016 and two more under the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations on 6 June.
He is due to be sentenced on September 22 in a case brought jointly by the Hartlepool and North Yorkshire Trading Standards teams.
Following the hearing, Rachael Readman, Senior Trading Standards Officer at Hartlepool Borough Council, said: “This has been a protracted case, partly as a result of the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the legal system.”
“We are pleased to have been able to finally bring it to a successful conclusion and it demonstrates our commitment to ensuring the safety of the general public.”
