An 11-year-old boy was served alcohol at a shop in Caerphilly borough, prompting a licensing committee to consider suspending the premises' alcohol licence for up to three months.
Incident details
The incident occurred at Village Stores on High Street, Nelson, in June 2025. The boy's parents alerted Caerphilly County Borough Council's trading standards team, which uncovered "further concerns about the management" of the shop.
At a licensing committee meeting on Wednesday, trading standards officer Rhian Cross described the incident as "a serious incident involving the sale of alcohol to an 11-year-old child." The parents went to the shop to challenge the staff member involved, but the employee reportedly "didn't know the legal age" for selling alcohol.
Further concerns
Trading standards visits later found problems with accessing CCTV, training logs, and records of underage sale refusals. The premises licence holder, Nirojan Thavarasa, was seemingly out of the country and, upon return, showed a "failure to cooperate" with the investigation.
Gwent Police officer John Taylor supported the licence review, saying CCTV footage of the incident was "quite damning" and left him with "no confidence at the moment that Mr Thavarasa has promoted [the council's] licensing objectives."
Health and legal implications
Simon Hodsdon, head of public health at Aneurin Bevan University Health Board, said the incident was "particularly concerning because of the young age of the child," noting alcohol can affect "body and brain development" and is linked to harmful behaviours.
The sale of alcohol to under-18s is a criminal offence, but proceedings were complicated by difficulties tracking down the former staff member. A "due diligence" defence from Mr Thavarasa halted the criminal investigation.
Proposed measures
Council licensing officer Sandra Lewis-Williams suggested suspending the licence to give Mr Thavarasa time to implement correct measures, including staff training. Macie Channing, representing Mr Thavarasa, said he had appointed a new premises licence holder and agreed to new conditions proposed by police and council.
"We acknowledge the wide concerns that exist," Channing said. "The licence holder does recognise the seriousness of the incident and we do not seek to minimise those at all." She added that age verification was in place, but the employee "did not follow what they were trained to do," calling it "a major error."
The committee retired to consider the case and will issue its decision within five working days.
