A TRADING standards officer hopes the conviction of a newsagents' assistant for selling cigarettes to an underage customer will serve as a warning to all shop staff.
Senior trading standards officer Tom Terrett was speaking after Sunderland magistrates imposed a £500 fine on Michelle Ball for serving a 13-year-old girl with a packet of cigarettes.
Ball, of Witherwack, Sunderland, denied selling tobacco to an underage person, but was found guilty and also ordered to pay £332 costs to the city council.
The court heard the 13-year-old was acting as a volunteer for the council's trading standards department.
She bought the cigarettes at Beaumont Street Newsagents, in Southwick, Sunderland, last February.
Following the hearing, Mr Terrett said: "We hope the outcome will encourage staff working in shops to ensure that when young people try to buy cigarettes, they always ask for proof of age.
"We will be continuing to send child volunteers into shops to check they are complying with the law."
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