The owner of a former ‘legal high’ shop has admitted selling unsafe and dangerous products.

Darren Manley, who was a director of RAD Trading Limited, which ran the Red Eye shop in Oxford’s Cowley Road, pleaded guilty at Oxford Crown Court on Monday, to eight offences in relation to the General Product Safety Regulations 2005.

RAD Trading Limited, registered at East Wittering, Chichester, also admitted eight offences.

The shop, which closed in 2015, sold so-called ‘legal highs’ – substances that have similar effects to illegal drugs but which were not banned. They have since been made illegal by the Psychoactive Substances Act 2016.

Oxfordshire County Council’s Trading Standards Service said Manley, 36, described the products he sold as ‘research chemicals’ and ‘herbal incenses’.

But trading standards officers began investigating the store in 2014 and found that the products were being sold for recreational purposes and they were both unsafe and dangerous.

In May 2014 officers provided Manley, of Richmond Road, Brighton, and RAD Trading Limited with advice on their requirements under consumer safety legislation, and told him the county council believed that the ‘legal highs’ – as they were being sold – were unsafe. But officers said that after repeated visits to Red Eye, the defendant and the company continued to sell dangerous products.

Manley will be sentenced on Tuesday at the same court.

Oxfordshire County Council Trading Standards Service operations manager Jody Kerman said: “The way these products were sold meant that they were not legal at all.

"The products were labelled incorrectly and contained dangerous substances with no appropriate warnings or instructions for their safe use.”