TRADING Standards officers who raided an illegal sex shop found children's cartoon character Felix the Cat hiding an X-rated surprise.

Video boxes with the comedy cat's face on the front held titles including 'What school girls don't tell,' 'Sensuous Nurse,' and 'Secrets of a Play Girl.'

Now officers from Blackburn with Darwen Council are celebrating after successfully convicting the man working in the shop at the time.

And a leading councillor has vowed to continue the fight against the illegal premises.

John Townsley, from Accrington, pleaded not guilty to 14 charges relating to the haul from the Pirate Shop, Darwen Street, Blackburn.

Townsley was convicted on four counts of breaching the Trade Descriptions Act, three counts of breaching the Video Recordings Act because he was supplying unclassified videos and seven further counts of aiding and abetting.

He was fined £50 on each of the four Trading Standards offences, while no penalty was set for the remaining convictions. He was ordered to pay £200 costs to Blackburn with Darwen Council, which brought the prosecution.

Officers at the authority have worked for more than a year to try to close down the shop, which they have claimed needs a special sex shop licence because the majority of the goods it sells are of a sexual nature.

People working in the shop claim that is not the case and the council has so far been unable to bring a prosecution against the owner for running the shop without a licence because they have not been able to establish who the owner is. The head office listed behind the counter simply leads to another shop and to another shop, and so on.

But the raid on the shop earlier this year gave the council the opportunity to take action and prosecute the member of staff in the shop at the time of the raid.

Coun Maureen Bateson, in charge of citizens rights at the council, said: "This case demonstrates that we are trying to take action on this shop.

"It is clearly operating outside the law and we are trying to get rid of them any way we can.

"We cannot control what they sell unless they have a licence.

"They are a scourge for everyone in Darwen Street and I welcome this action because it shows we are trying to get something done about it."

Townsley told the court the he was only in the shop to see a friend to carry out repairs. He later admitted working there but said he could not sell videos, the court was told.

It was also claimed that the videos, seized from a backroom, were for employee use only. But the court found they were intended for sale and that the inconsistency of Townsley's evidence cast doubt on his role in the shop.

The four seized videos are to be destroyed.