HEALTH inspectors have started an investigation after a 15-year-old girl was burnt so badly on a tanning salon bed that she needed hospital treatment.

Schoolgirl Katie Turner was rushed to casualty suffering from severe sunburn, sickness, and headaches after spending more than 20 minutes under the lamps.

Health campaigners have called for a change in the law to ban the use of tanning beds by children - a call supported by Katie's mother, Elizabeth Turner.

She said: "My daughter was burnt red raw - I have never seen her in such a state. She was in absolute agony and could hardly stand. She should never have been allowed to use a sunbed for so long."

Government guidelines state that UV lamps should not be used by under-16s - but it is not a legal requirement.

Nina Gould, of the British Association of Dermatologists, told The Northern Echo that laws should be introduced to ban children from using sunbeds.

"This law has already been passed in Scotland, which is fantastic, but we want the rest of the UK to follow," she said.

"Being burnt this badly increases your chances of getting melanoma, which is the deadliest form of skin cancer."

More than 100 deaths from skin cancer every year in the UK are thought to be linked to the use of sunbeds.

Recent research by Which?

magazine found three per cent of eight to 15-year-olds, 170,000 young people, have used a sunbed despite accepted advice about the health dangers.

Ministers are considering draft guidelines drawn up by the Health and Safety Executive that would result in tougher regulation of the sunbed industry.

As well as banning children, salons would have to be staffed at all times and unsupervised, coin operated sunbeds would be banned.

The Darlington teenager went to the salon with a schoolfriend and lay on the bed for 12 minutes. She returned later that afternoon thinking the session had not worked and was allowed back on for another nine minutes.

By the end of the day she needed to be treated with antihistamines and painkillers at Darlington Memorial Hospital's accident and emergency unit.

Ms Turner, 34, of Hutton Road, Darlington, said: "Katie has asked me before if she could go on a sunbed, but I have always said no. She's far too young and she has lilywhite skin.

"But kids being kids, she went after school with her friends. The people at the salon didn't ask her age or talk her through what she was meant to do.

"After the first 12 minutes she thought that it hadn't worked so she went back and asked for another nine minutes.

She didn't wear any goggles so she was staring into the bulbs with her eyes open the whole time."

Later that evening, Ms Turner heard cries coming minutes, but she looked like she had been lying in the sun for two days."

Philip Glancey, who runs the tanning parlour in Nightingale Avenue, Darlington, said Katie told him she had used the beds before, and was served by another member of staff when she came back the second time.

"She did it all underhand,"

said Mr Glancey, who runs his business separately from the Head to Toe hair salon, which operates from the same premises.

"I advise people who have not been before to go on for no more than six minutes.

"I asked if she had been on a sunbed before and she said yes. I also told her the goggles were there, but she did not want to use them.

"She came back in the afternoon when I was out and my wife served her. She had no idea the girl had already been in.

"I have told the mother to come round to see me to speak to me.

"I have done everything by the book. I have put notices up to tell people what they can and can't do.

"When I first opened, I was concerned about kids from the nearby school coming in.

I asked the council if there was an age limit but there is no age limit. I don't let people in who are ten, 11 or 12 - but I could do. "She got herself burnt and is trying to make it look as if it's my fault."

A spokeswoman for Darlington Borough Council said officers would be interviewing the Turner family and the salon owners.

"The council's environmental health team is continuing to collect information about a possible offence," she said.

"Tanning salons should have proper systems in place to ensure customers do not exceed recommended usage."