A BANKRUPT businessman who had been importing children's toys containing dangerous levels of poisonous metal has been fined in court.
Trading standards officers caught John Reynolds, 41, supplying xylophones with high levels of lead and chromium, which can cause brain damage.
A trading standards officer saw the xylophone at a shop in Newcastle in January and traced the toys back to Reynolds.
Tests found one of the keys on the xylophone was 11 times over the limit for lead and another was 33 times the level for chromium.
His former firm, Complete Trading UK Ltd, had been in trouble with trading standards over the dangerous xylophones and toxic crayons twice already this year.
Reynolds, who was declared bankrupt in 2002, failed to turn up for the hearing at Gosforth Magistrates' Court yesterday, but was fined £500 and ordered to pay £240 costs.
David Hedley, of Newcastle City Council's trading standards, said: "These metals can give children brain damage."
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