High Street stores caught flogging adult titles to youngster by Which? magazine

Three High Street shops have been caught selling 18-rated video games depicting sex and violence to a 15-year-old girl in an undercover investigation by Which? magazine's Computing desk.

Woolworths, Game and Maplin all allowed the teenager to buy age-restricted games, showing ‘scenes of extreme brutality’, on the High Street.

Six other shops – Tesco, Argos, Debenhams, HMV, Currys Digital and local shop Entertainment Exchange - all refused the teenager, who tested stores in Harrow, Middlesex.

Woolworths sold Grand Theft Auto (GTA): Vice City Stories to the youngster, whilst specialist shop GAME sold Condemned 2, subtitled “a terrifying descent into chaos”, to the girl without question.

In the Maplin store, the assistant asked the investigator’s age, but didn’t refuse the sale of Hitman, even when she said she was 15.