THE owner of a Worcestershire sex shop has been ordered to pay more than £5,500 after being found guilty of illegally selling pornographic videos over the internet.

Tony Tozer, who runs the shop Taboo, supplied two explicit videos to county Trading Standards officers via the store's website in September 2001, a court was told.

The videos carried Restricted 18 (R18) classifications due to their explicit content.

He appeared before Redditch magistrates yesterday and denied two charges of supplying the videos other than in a licensed sex shop.

Barry Berlin, prosecuting, said under the Video Recordings Act, R18 videos could only be supplied in a licensed sex shop to customers aged over 18.

"And although a Switch card was used in this case, children as young as 11 can obtain debit cards such as Solo and also sign for the item when it is delivered by recorded delivery," he said.

The defendant, aged 41, who opened Taboo in Blackwell Street, Kidderminster in 1996, said parents could put a block on adult websites so their children could not visit them.

In finding him guilty, district judge Bruce Morgan, said: "Mr Tozer can sell to anyone in the country or the world via the worldwide web, people he has never seen, met or spoken to.

"But by doing so he relies on the integrity of the person buying the goods and, unfortunately, human nature isn't like that - buyers could claim to be over 18 when they are not."

The defendant, who was fined £350 plus £5,442 costs, said after the case he would now withdraw videos from the internet site.

"The important thing is we can carry on trading,

"We have got a number of options open to us but we need to digest what has happened today before making any decision as regarding taking the matter further."

Worcestershire Trading Standards operations manager Steve Birch said after the case that he was satisfied with the outcome.

"In this case, we responded to a complaint concerning the sale of R18 pornographic videos on the internet, which is in breach of Video Recordings Act legislation," said Mr Birch.

"When a transaction takes place within a licensed sex shop, the seller is in a position to ensure the buyer is an adult but this clearly cannot be done by mail order or on the internet."