Ban for ‘poison doll’ market trader from Ilford after newspaper sting
Rashid Suleman - Credit: Archant
A market seller who stocked potentially poisonous dolls has been banned from trading.
Rashid Suleman, 42, of Eton Road, Ilford, was also fined £1,500 for the offence, and for obstructing trading standards officers.
Last year the Recorder’s sister paper the Barking & Dagenham Post received a tip-off that Suleman was stocking the dolls at his stall on Barking Market, which could have contained the poisonous chemical DEHP.
A reporter visited the stall and was able to buy one, before confronting him – after which he said he had not known the toys were dangerous, and would remove them from sale.
But 12 months later trading standards officers seized 21 more dangerous toys from his stall which he said had been supplied by R C Flyzone Ltd.
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Following enquiries, officers found that Suleman was in fact R C Flyzone’s managing director.
Redbridge Council said they have been made aware of the conviction and would block any application for a licence to trade in the borough.
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Evidence on the safety of phthalates has been inconclusive, but European regulators have classified DEHP as possibly carcinogenic to humans.
Suleman was convicted at Barkingside Magistrates’ Court on January 9 for failing to use marked or other means of providing information about goods as required by safety regulations, and giving false information to an enforcement officer.
His trading licence was revoked and he was fined £1,530.
A spokesman from Redbridge Council said: “Trading standards would oppose any application for a licence to trade on the streets of Redbridge and would aim to contact the two town centre events providers and inform them that Mr Suleman would not be welcomed in Ilford town centre as a trader.”
