大象传媒

The law makes it an offence to pierce or arrange to pierce the tongue, genitals and nipples of Under 18s and requires piercers to demand proof of age and signed consent from customers having those procedures.

The move follows concerns that piercings like these can cause medical complications as well as worries over child protection issues.

大象传媒 X-Ray sent 17-year-old Sophie undercover to a series if piercing salons across south Wales to see if they were sticking to the law 鈥� or whether anyone was willing to give her a tongue piercing.

Most salons demanded ID before offering a tongue piercing, but we found two exceptions who were willing to pierce Sophie鈥檚 tongue without seeing proof of her age.

It鈥檚 concerning news for Professor Mike Lewis, an expert in oral health at Cardiff University. He told X-Ray: 鈥淭he numbers of bacteria in the mouth is probably the most populated part of your body. When you are piercing the tissues, the inside of the lip or through the tongue, you are letting those bacteria access to your body. And from there they can spread to other parts of the body and cause serious infections.鈥�

Some of them can be life-threatening. Eight years ago a woman from Caerphilly died of septicaemia two days after a tongue piercing. But it鈥檚 not just a risk of infection.

Prof Lewis said: 鈥淭he main problem is the swelling because if you get swelling within the tongue and it spreads to the back of the tongue you are going to choke.鈥�

Both businesses told us they were very disappointed with our findings. One hadn鈥檛 realised the law had come into force as they鈥檇 been expecting to receive information about it, while the other says they made a mistake in not asking for ID and promised it will never happen again.

Sophie said: 鈥淚t is shocking to watch back. 聽If you went to a pub you鈥檇 expect to be asked for ID. So why wouldn鈥檛 it be the same for a place like this?鈥�

Pamela Post has been walking her dogs in Poplars Park in Cowbridge for over 30 years. Her current dog, Louis, loves being let off his lead to run free in the park. But a few months ago Pamela had a shock.

Pamela said: 鈥淚 was walking the dog through the park like I normally do, let him off the lead at the start of the park and let him run. And all of a sudden I was surrounded by three gentlemen. And they said do you know you're not supposed to have the dog off the lead.鈥�

The three gentlemen were filming the conversation and they even read Pamela her rights. She found the whole incident quite intimidating.

She said: 鈥淚 just couldn't believe it, it was so surreal. It was something out of a film. I mean you walk here every day and all of a sudden you're surrounded by three men.鈥�

Pamela was given a 拢75 fixed penalty notice by the gentlemen but there was something interesting about the notice. It stated that Pamela was being fined for letting her dog off the lead in Twt Park but she鈥檚 adamant that she was in Poplars Park at the time.

Part of the confusion arose because Poplars Park and Twt Park are directly next to one another, separated only by a bridge and a stream. Twt Park is a child-friendly park and has a dogs-on-leads rule in place, while neighbouring Poplars Park does not.

Vale of Glamorgan Council has outsourced their park enforcement to the company 3GS who do a range of duties, from fining people who drop litter, to issuing parking tickets. The three men who issued Pamela with a fine were employees of 3GS.

And Pamela isn鈥檛 the only local dog walker who has been approached by 3GS employees in Poplars Park. Linda Donnelly was approached back in February while walking her dog, Buddy.

Linda claims: 鈥淭hese two men approached me. They were in uniform. First of all I thought they were the police. Then I realised they probably weren't because they had Vale of Glamorgan Council badges on.

鈥淭hen they were saying the dog should not be off the lead. I said there's a sign at the beginning of the park, as you're coming in from the high street, there's a sign there and it's a sign for clearing up dog muck. So I couldn't understand why they were doing this because it's quite upsetting actually and quite intimidating.鈥�

In the end, Linda wasn't issued with a fine. However, Pamela, was left in dispute with 3GS over her fine.

X-Ray contacted the Vale of Glamorgan Council and 3GS, with the company admitting they鈥檝e made a mistake. They've apologised to Pamela, and rescinded her fine. 3GS told us that one of their officers wrongly interpreted a sign in the park 鈥� and should not, in fact have been issuing fines for dogs being off the leash in EITHER park. They say they've had no other similar incidents, and have procedures in place to help anyone who believes they've wrongly received a fixed penalty notice.