A BEAUTY machine's failure to live up to its promise of permanently removing unwanted hair has landed its distributor with fines totalling £20,000.

And yesterday Middlesbrough Borough Council's head of Trading Standards, John Wells, praised the customer who had overcome her embarrassment to report the treatment's shortcomings.

Mr Wells was speaking after a hearing at Teesside Crown Court in which the Rugby based beauty product distribution company of Belle Sante UK Ltd pleaded guilty to two charges relating to both the machine and its literature's false claims.

Prosecuting counsel Jonathan Walker told Judge Tony Briggs how a Cleveland woman had lodged a complaint with Middlesbrough's Trading Standards office after 12 sessions of the treatment at a local salon failed to permanently remove unwanted hair.

The court was also told how experts in the field had also confirmed, in their opinion, that the Epil 2000 machine would not permanently remove hair.

After the matter was reported, Mr Walker said that literature accompanying the equipment had been altered to read "progressive'' hair loss rather than "permanent.''

A total of 500 of the £4,000 machines were sold to 125 salons up and down the country but since the systems' failure are no longer available.

Defending Belle Sante and managing director Roy Cowley, barrister Darren Whitehead told Judge Briggs how the machine's manufacturer Micro Technology International Ltd., has already been prosecuted for the offences in the Magistrates Court and fined the maximum £5000.

Belle Sante, he said, which had first elected to go to Crown Court for trial and had later admitted the charges, had been in the beauty product distribution business for more than ten years and had never encountered any difficulties of this kind before.

Fining the company £10,000 on each charge and ordering Belle Sante to pay costs totalling £8,130, Judge Briggs said that adequate tests had not been carried out on the machines and salons and customers had been misled.

Trading Standards Chief, Mr Wells, after the case said: "We are obviously delighted with the result.''