A SHOPKEEPER who sold a butane gas lighter refill to a teenager who later died from sniffing the substance said yesterday he felt deep remorse for what happened.

Appearing before magistrates in Peterlee, County Durham, Pearin Panathan, 31, of Belinda's Shop, in West Coronation Street, Murton, admitted selling the refill to someone under 18.

Trading standards officer Bryan Smith told the court how 15-year-old Brian Slee, of Melbury Street, Dawdon, died after he sniffed the contents.

During the investigation a friend of the boy, who had been with him when he bought the canister, said they had gone into the shop. He said Brian asked the man in the shop for some gas.

The court was told the man did not say anything, but got the canister and sold it to him.

An earlier inquest, which returned a verdict of death by misadventure, heard how Brian, a pupil at St Bede's RC School, in Peterlee, went to Murton Welfare Park on October 28 last year and sniffed the contents of the canister.

Afterwards, he had been climbing a fence in the park when he collapsed and stopped breathing.

His friends called paramedics and Brian was taken to Sunderland's Royal Hospital, where he died soon after.

Panathan's barrister, Catherine Hewitt, told magistrates how her client and his wife fled to Britain from Sri Lanka in May last year.

She said: "They purchased the shop in Murton five months prior to this dreadful incident."

She said he had been aware of the laws and local requirements covering the sale of butane lighter gas and deeply regretted what had happened.

She said Panathan, who had no previous convictions, was "incredibly sorry.

Sentencing Panathan to a 250-hour community punishment order, magistrates also ordered him to pay costs of £1,390 for what the bench said was a serious offence.

Brian's family were too upset to comment last night.