A BOLTON man was left with a half-finished tattoo after the mysterious "disappearance" of his tattooist.

Father-of-three Julian Edmundson, aged 28, of Osbourne Grove, paid £100 for a tattoo as a Christmas present from his wife.

The outline of a dragon and a wizard was etched onto Mr Edmundson's right arm by award-winning tattooist Paul Curnock a week before Christmas.

His tattoo still needed to be coloured but Mr Edmundson said every time he went back to Mr Curnock's Halliwell Road shop Tattoo Planet, he was given new appointments by an assistant or simply found the shop closed and the shutters down.

Mr Edmundson said: "It's beyond a joke.

"I must have been more than a dozen times.

"Now I just wish I had gone somewhere else."

Mr Edmundson, a maintenance electrician for Edbro, off Lever Street, added that he had spoken to other people who also had suffered broken appointments.

He said: "I was so pleased at the thought of this new tattoo.

"I'm not particularly tattoo mad but me and my wife chose the design and we liked it.

"I feel a fool walking around with a half-finished job."

Tattoo artist Mr Curnock had not been replying to messages left on his mobile phone answering service.

When the Bolton Evening News managed to track him down on a different mobile phone number, he admitted he had been having "a couple of personal problems" but denied that hehad disappeared leaving jobs half-finished. He said: "I totally disagree with what's being said.

"Mr Edmundson has just flown off the handle.

"I make my living doing this, I'm not going to mess around with that.

"I have had a couple of personal problems and I explained them to him.

"Normally the shop is open to the public but because of my problems I've not been able to open and I've not been there since last Wednesday."

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