A Christian charity was celebrating last night after winning the first round of its High Court battle to prevent a "fair of erotica" taking place in a North-East city.

The Christian Institute was granted permission for a judicial review of a decision by Newcastle City Council earlier this month to grant a licence to a company called Xsensual for a three-day event at the city's Telewest Arena, on September 8, 9 and 10.

Mr Justice Elias, sitting at London's Law Courts, granted permission to the charity, of Jesmond Road, Newcastle, whose object is to promote the Christian faith.

The full judicial review hearing is expected to be held on Tuesday.

The judge said that in granting permission he was not giving any indication of his views on the strength of the case.

At next week's hearing, both the city council and Xsensual will be able to make submissions to the judge who hears the case, expected to last a day.

The Christian Institute is to challenge the decision of Newcastle City Council on August 7 to grant Xsensual a sex establishment licence for a sex shop at the Telewest Arena, a large modern venue by the River Tyne used for concerts, sporting fixtures and exhibitions.

The charity's counsel, Charles Holland, told the judge that ''what is proposed to be operated is something in the form of a sex market, where the licence holder lets out stalls to third parties . . .''

Mr Holland said the primary intention of the Christian Institute was to stop the Xsensual 2000 show going ahead in Newcastle, but he told the judge that a similar event was planned for Sheffield in October and there was a proposal for another in Cardiff, later on in the year.

It will be argued by the charity next week that "a sex establishment licence for a sex shop does not allow its holder to cause or permit third parties to use the premises licensed, or parts thereof, for the conduct and management of sex shop businesses on their own accounts"