A SUNBED company has disputed a woman's account that one of it's sunbeds burst into flames as a she lay on it.

The story of Hartlepool woman Christine Bradley, 56, has been reported in national newspapers after she said the tanning booth caught fire 15 minutes after she started using it.

However Hartlepool's Golden Brown Sunbed Hire insists there is no proof the vertical sunbed was the cause of the fire at Ms Bradley's Wynnstay Gardens home.

The mother-of-one said she hired the sunbed for £80 to get a tan ahead of her holiday to Gran Canaria when the device caught fire at about 4pm on Saturday.

A spokesman for the firm said: “In 25 years we have never had an incident like this.?“Where the sunbed is fire-damaged is on top of the sunbed, but the running gear is in the bottom.

“If there was a fire it would be in the bottom end. We disagree. It’s not the sunbed that has caused the fire, they just don’t set on fire like that.”

The spokesman said the firm has offered Ms Bradley £2,000 to redecorate her bedroom, after clothes stored in the room, a TV, carpets, wallpaper, blinds and a window were damaged by the flames. But Ms Bradley has said she will use her insurance firm.

Two fire engines from Stranton Fire Station attended the scene and station bosses had described her as very “lucky”.