大象传媒

Tanning salons in Wales are breaking the law by letting under-18s use their sunbeds, an undercover 大象传媒 investigation has found.
Research undertaken by X-Ray shows salons in Newport and Cardiff letting in two underage teenage girls without any ID checks whatsoever.
In 2011, it became illegal for any sunbed salon business to let anyone under the age of 18 use a sunbed.聽 The law came about after fears of increased cancer in younger people. Recent figures from England suggest that thousands of children there are still using them, so the Welsh consumer series set out to discover if the same was happening this side of the border.
Of the twelve salons the programme visited, five (just over 40%) took money from the underage girls and showed them how to use the sunbeds, before the girls made their excuses and left.
Professor Christian Aldridge, a consultant dermatologist based at Prince Charles Hospital in Merthyr Tydfil, says 鈥淲e鈥檝e had a聽 considerable number of cases of particularly young women under 25, who鈥檝e come in as a result of mole changes on their skin. Sometimes other family members are unaware that they鈥檙e using sunbeds because they鈥檙e underage.鈥�

The programme features 26-year-old Paris Tippett from Reading. Miss Tippett was diagnosed with聽 Stage 2 Melanoma after finding a new freckle on her leg after prolonged sunbed use. A large chunk her leg was removed, along with her lymph nodes, in order to treat the cancer.聽
When asked about her underage sunbed use she says, 鈥淚 may have even been 16 actually. Because they used to ask you for your date of birth and I鈥檇 just say it and they鈥檇 let you go in and just believe it. So you just kind of practice a date of birth and there was no ID. And actually I have shown my sister鈥檚 ID before and they just took me in.鈥�

The secret filming footage captured by X-Ray shows multiple breaches of the regulations.聽
Julie Barratt, President of the Chartered Institute of Environmental Health, was shown the footage and says: 鈥淚t doesn鈥檛 matter how young people look or how old people look, the requirement is they produce ID.聽 And they weren鈥檛 asked to. And certainly there was no proof of ID. And that鈥檚 very concerning.鈥�

The programme also contacted Cardiff and Newport Councils about their findings. Cardiff said they take the regulation of age restricted products very seriously and will be reviewing the practices of tanning salons within their area to ensure compliance with the law. Newport asked anyone aware of聽 underage tanning taking place to contact their environmental health team.