A NEWSAGENT has been left with a suspended prison sentence after being caught selling under-the-counter cigarettes for a third time.

Eight separate stings were carried out by Lancashire Trading Standards at Queensgate News in Burnley over a 16-month period, the town's magistrates court was told.

And each time a member of staff at the Colne Road shop sold smuggled counterfeit packs, or pouches of hand-rolling tobacco, at knock-down prices, the Burnley court heard.

Shop owner Mian Khan, 63 pleaded guilty to eight offences of selling cigarettes or tobacco breaching production regulations, from June 2017 to October 2018.

He was given an eight-week prison sentence, suspended for 12 months, after magistrates heard that he had similar convictions dating back to 2012 and 2014.

Khan must also pay £1,028 in court costs and a £115 victim surcharge.

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Nick McNamara, prosecuting on behalf of Lancashire Trading Standards, said: "These offences are the result of test purchase exercises carried out in the Burnley area by a suitably trained and supervised test-purchase volunteer.

"In each case the volunteer, posing as a customer, was able to buy under-the-counter cigarettes and tobacco from a variety of people working at Queensgate News, including a male and female described as being in their 60s.

"On each occasion the price charged was about half the price of their genuine, tax-paid, high street equivalents and on most occasions the money was seen to go straight into the till.

"Packs were retrieved from a variety of locations, described as a back room, a shelf behind the counter and from a compartment at the end of a passageway."

The court heard each of the packs or pouches were all sold without the standard UK health warnings, indicating they had been smuggled in from abroad.