A SHOPKEEPER who sells cocaine user kits shouted his innocence of any crime as he was taken for questioning by police last night.

Nabeel Maqsood, 26, said he was being persecuted for selling the £13 kits, which were displayed in the front window of his Stockton shop.

The kits, bought from a distribution centre in Manchester, contain a razor blade, mirror, tube and a metal spoon.

However, Mr Maqsood, whose wife, Sadia, and two sons, aged four and three, died in a house fire last year, has stressed there is nothing illegal in selling the equipment at The Gift Centre, in Stockton High Street.

He said he felt he was being victimised.

Speaking to The Northern Echo, he said: "Basically, we have a mirror, a razor blade and a spoon sold at the same time. It's what anyone can get any time they want from anywhere, including their own home.

"I'm trying to build a business that is entirely legal. There was a demand for them. People, respectable people in suits, were coming in asking for something that is legal and I supplied it.

"If they made them illegal, I would stop. I do not sell drugs or anything like that.

"Now this has been made public and hyped up, there's people staring at me in my shop, one stop away from spitting at me.

"Sales have gone right down, and all because I sell spoons and mirrors at the same time.

"I have a lot to deal with personally at Christmas time and I do not think this is fair for doing something entirely within the law."

Inspector Jim Tate, of Cleveland Police, said officers had made inquiries at the shop and that Mr Maqsood was co-operating. He said that Mr Maqsood had not been arrested.

Trading standards officers said the cocaine kits and cannabis smoking paraphernalia in the store window were legal.

But Teesside drugs help charity Panic condemned the sale of the equipment. A spokesman said it profited profits from people's misery and the law should be changed.