A WOMAN who saw her two-year-old granddaughter nearly blinded by a metal display hook, attacked the £3,000 fine slapped on a store as "ridiculous".

Dorothy Corr said Matalan Retail Ltd should have been facing a penalty of at least £20,000 after little Demi-Lea Corr had her left eye pierced by the spike.

The woman was shopping at the company's store on Tonge Moor Road with her granddaughter when she fell onto the hook, which was attached to the end of the aisle display.

Earlier this week, the firm was fined £3,000 by magistrates at Bolton and ordered to pay £1,618 costs after pleading guilty to failing to ensure the safety of its customers.

Mrs Corr, of Lichfield Avenue, Tonge Moor, claimed it should have been much higher.

"The fine is ridiculous, it is a drop in the ocean for Matalan," she said. "They should have been fined £20,000. That would have made them sit up and go 'ouch!'"

Mrs Corr said her granddaughter had been left traumatised by the incident. She has started bed-wetting, she will not go into big stores and will not allow anyone to put tight fitting clothes over her head because she is scared it will touch her eye.

Her grandmother added: "She has had to go through all this and it wasn't her fault. She wasn't running about, she was holding my hand when she fell."

Mrs Corr, who had to lift Demi-Lea off the spike when the incident happened in November 1999, said the family was now involved in a battle for compensation with Matalan.

The company offered £500 at first and then raised this to £1,250. It has agreed to pay for a psychologist's's report to reveal how much the little girl, who is now aged four and lives in Newton-le-Willows, has been traumatised.

Bolton magistrates were told that the Matalan store in the town had now introduced a daily check system, whereby staff made sure rubber safety caps which should be placed over the hooks, had not fallen off.

It was also revealed that in the two years prior to the incident there had been only 12 reports of injuries at the firm's 108 shops nationwide.