A SHOP was stripped of its licence to sell booze after the store’s CCTV system caught staff selling to customer as early as 7am..

Lifestyle Express on Dumbarton Road was banned from selling alcohol with immediate effect following a hearing at Glasgow Licensing Board.

Police became aware of the crime after a woman walked out of the shop, owned by Syad Akram, just after 7.30am with a carrier bag which had a bottle of spirit wrapped in cardboard in it.

After further investigation the shop owners husband and son, Mohammed and Alishaan Akram, were then caught selling alcohol before 10am another 25 times between October 14 and October 26 last year. Representing Mrs Akram at the hearing was her lawyer Archie Maciver who said: “I’m not going to defend the indefensible. By any view what happened here is unacceptable.

“Mrs Akram is a respectable woman and she is as horrified as anyone who has seen the CCTV footage.

“It’s shocking, they knew exactly what they are doing.”

The board heard that the sales took place during a period when Mrs Akram was in Pakistan attending to her sick mother.

“Twenty years she’s run this shop,” added Mr Maciver.

“Over twenty years she’s built up a good reputation and in three weeks that’s been smashed to pieces.”

Councillor Butler said he could identify four or five “regulars” who were frequently sold alcohol at these times.

He said: “It’s not as if it’s an isolated incident, it’s a whole series of incidents. And it didn’t look as though it had just started either.”

The culprits’ actions were described as “sheer stupidity”.

The board made the decision to revoke the licence.