Discount retail chain TK Maxx was ordered to pay more than £4,000 today after admitting misleading customers at its Shrewsbury store.

Representatives of the company appeared at Shrewsbury Magistrates’ Court and pleaded guilty to two charges under the Unfair Trading Regulations 2008. They admitted engaging in a commercial practice which was a misleading action by containing false information about products.

The charge involved two handbags which were claimed to be genuine leather.

The court heard the bags in fact contained less than 80 per cent leather which is the benchmark under UK law to be considered genuine leather.

Magistrates today fined the company £2,000 for the breaches and told bosses to pay £2,282.28 in costs plus a £15 victim surcharge.

Ms Lindsey Blackall, prosecuting, said Shropshire Council’s trading standards service became aware of the matter following a complaint made by a customer.

Analysed

She said the customer had bought a handbag from the store in the Darwin Shopping Centre last year but after showing it off to a friend who ran a leather shop, they were informed it was not genuine.

Ms Blackall said test purchases were later made by trading standards officers on May 27 and October 1 last year and the bags were sent off to be analysed.

She said they revealed that the functional surface area of the one bag contained only 50 per cent genuine leather, while the other was 26 per cent leather.

Ms Blackall said: “The offences concern misleading actions taken by the trader.

“It covers any statement that is false or untruthful and also that information passed on by the trader which causes or is likely to cause a customer to make a purchasing decision which they might not otherwise have taken.”

Miss Hayley Saunders, for TK Maxx, said the company took the matter “very seriously” and had implemented measures to ensure similar breaches did not occur in the future.

By Russell Roberts