A COMMUNITY leader said a sex shop's announcement of record sales was a sad indictment on society.

Former Burnley Mayor Rafique Malik said there were damaging moral and social issues associated with shops like the one in Colne Road.

Mr Malik's comments came as national company Private Shops, which operates a business in the Duke Bar area of town, announced record growth in sales for the first six months of this year.

The company claimed that sales had leapt by more than 65 per cent, out-performing all other chains of retail stores in the UK.

Eve Vorley, chief operations officer for Private Shops, said: "While we as a company have been trading for more than 25 years, this is the fastest growth in sales in the history of the company.

"It is largely due to the changing standards of acceptability in the UK and more specifically changes in the BBFC guidelines as to what can be contained in 18 R videos and DVDs which can only be sold legally in licensed sexshops."

Miss Vorley said that sales were predicted to continue increasing over the next 12 months and that the company had plans to open a further 25 shops in the country.

Page Three girl Bobbi will be visiting the Burnley store this Friday to mark the record sales.

But Mr Malik said: "There is too much sex on TV and too much publicity about sex in general and as a consequence we are having more sex crimes. Unfortunately there is no such thing as bad publicity and if a Page Three girl visits the shop the company cannot lose."

A spokesman for Private Shops said the event was "just a bit of fun."