A COMPANY which supplies a Droitwich furniture firm has been fined after a family bought a faulty suite from the Spa store.

Lancashire firm Buoyant Upholstery Ltd, which supplies goods to DFS, in Kidderminster Road, Droitwich, had to pay a total of £7,000 after being found to have insufficient checking procedures at its factory.

The case was brought after a Redditch family bought a Brittany range suite from the Spa's DFS store. But ten days later, their four-year-old son needed hospital treatment when he cut four of his fingers on the sharp metal legs of the suite.

On May 3, the furniture manufacturers pleaded guilty to the supply of a dangerous three piece suite in a case which was brought by Worcestershire County Council's Trading Standards Service.

An independent furniture consultant examined the suite's legs and reported that all but one contained sharp metal burrs on their edges and had not been properly finished during their manufacture.

The company was fined £3,000 and ordered to pay prosecution costs of more than £4,000.

Trading standards divisional manager John Dell said: "Manufacturers have a duty to ensure that their products are safe. While this is an unusual situation, it is one that could have been predicted and therefore prevented.

"Although the cuts to the young boy's fingers were quite deep, he has made a full recovery."

A spokesman for DFS said: "We have carried out a full investigation into this case with the supplier concerned.

"It has become clear that the settee leg in question was a rogue component that had slipped through their quality control procedures and caused this problem.

"In order to prevent any re-occurrence of such an incident we have ensured that those procedures have been further improved at our supplier's factory."