MANY second-hand kiddy-seats could KILL a child in a car crash, a Bolton company claims.

Nursery product manufacturer Dorel UK Ltd in Farnworth was so shocked by the state of one second-hand seat it examined that it sent a team to check up on child seats being sold in car boot sales, markets and second-hand shops all over the North-west.

And the testers were horrified by what they discovered.

They found that many parents are putting their children's lives at risk by strapping them into second-hand seats.

The company road tested a range of the used seats they had bought.

In all cases the seats were found to have defects so serious that they could have killed or seriously injured a child in the event of a crash.

The seats tested all costs less than £10 - around 20 per cent of the price of a new car seat, and defects ranged from cracked plastic frames and incorrectly fitted or damaged harnesses, to rust, corrosion, loose locking mechanisms and missing components.

Now the company is warning parents who are thinking of buying a child car seat to invest in a new one.

Mike Caplin, chief executive of Dorel UK Ltd, UK distributors of the Maxi-Cosi brand car seats said: "People will spend £20,000 or more on a car, but will not invest in securing the most precious thing of all - their child. A second-hand child car seat may look all right, but in an accident many of them would simply fall apart.

"Our advice is if you don't know a seat's history, don't buy it."

The shock results come as the AA reveal that one in four motorists fail to restrain their children when travelling by car.

AA road safety head Andrew Howard said: "In a severe accident, an unrestrained child could hit the windscreen or other occupants with the same weight as a baby elephant."

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