A COUPLE have been hit with fines and costs totalling £1,300 after they were caught selling fireworks to a 16-year-old boy in Chingford.

Mark Pickering, 48, and Deborah Lawrence, 47, both of The Plain, Epping, appeared at Waltham Forest Magistrates’ Court charged with acting "without due diligence" in not checking the boy’s age.

James Welsh, prosecuting, said: “The boy did not look 18 and even if he looked 18 or thereabouts, to be truly diligent, it would be necessary to ask.”

In an operation targetting shops around the borough on October 27 last year, two trading standards officers and a licensing officer visited Budget Signs, Sewardstone Road, Chingford, which Mr Pickering owns and runs.

The boy, then 16, and a girl, then aged 15, were sent in with the task of trying to buy fireworks.

Miss Lawrence, who was helping her partner in the shop that day, sold the Fenwicks Fireworks Flash Red Comet to the boy, thinking he was over 18.

She said: “The young woman was very heavily made up and I thought she was trying to look older than she was.

“But I had no doubt in my mind that the lad was over 18 - he had a large coat on and a light growth on his face.”

And although no evidence was given that the couple deliberately or repeatedly sold fireworks to children, magistrates concluded there was no adequate policy in place to prevent it happening.

The shop was fully licensed to sell fireworks and posters with warnings about selling them to children were on display but Miss Lawrence had no formal training.

Mr Pickering said: “We were selling the fireworks as a favour to a friend of mine who had fallen on hard times.

“We won’t be selling them anymore because of the grief this has caused - I’m not prepared to go through this again.”

Chairman of the bench Mr Joseph said: “We don’t accept, on the balance of probabilities, that Mr Pickering acted with due diligence.

“We believe he has not taken reasonable steps for someone who has been selling the fireworks for a number of years and we expect some form of training to be given to staff.

“His only course of action was advising Miss Lawrence to ask if she was in doubt.

“We find that Miss Lawrence sold the fireworks to the minor.

“We believe that he looked under 18 and that Miss Lawrence should have asked for his age and proof of ID.”

Mr Pickering and Miss Lawrence were handed fines of £400 and £200 respectively and were also ordered to pay court costs of £700.