A porn shop owner has promised to do better after his company was convicted of selling videos that were not sexy enough.

Members of the public complained to trading standards officers about the not-so-blue videos they bought from The Adult Shop in Gillygate.

Officers first warned Griffin Star Printing Company, and when that did not work, took the firm to court.

Magistrates ordered Nicholas Michael Griffin's company to pay £5,800 in fines and court costs after it admitted four offences under consumer law.

Outside court, Griffin, director of the company, said: "It's amazing that people had the audacity and were prepared to complain about things like that."

He did say that if he got a licence for his shop he would be ensuring that his videos were true blue.

Colin Rumford, head of York Trading Standards, said customers of adult shops were vulnerable because they were "not unnaturally" embarrassed about what they had bought.

As far as his department was concerned it was a straightforward trading standards case involving misrepresentation to the public.

Prosecuting, Michael Taylor said customers bought videos for a "fairly substantial premium price" bearing titles such as Secrets Of A Sensuous Nurse, Talk Naughty To Me and Confessions Of A Sex Maniac.

But the films they bought were not the "shall we say more interesting" films they wanted.

One of the films, Secrets Of A Sensuous Nurse, should not have been offered for sale at all because it did not have a film classification.

All the films involved could be seen on "late-night terrestrial TV".

Michael Nicholson, representing the company, said it had bought the videos from a "very reputable supplier".

Mr Griffin, of Clee Crescent, Grimsby, had not actually viewed them, as both he and the company were based in Grimsby.

The company was now making more stringent checks on what it bought.

It provided the sleeves for the videos which bore the different titles. The supplier simply sent deliveries of unsleeved videos bearing the word "hard core".

The unclassified video was only unclassified because it was slightly longer than a version of the same film which was classified.

Magistrates heard the company was fined in Hull on September 5 last year for offences under the Trade Descriptions Act.

Updated: 14:12 Thursday, January 18, 2001