A SHOPKEEPER has become the first person in Glasgow to face the courts for selling alcohol to a police "spy kid".

Safdar Ali, 53, was fined £400 for handing over a Bacardi Breezer to a 16-year-old girl under the national test purchasing scheme.

Now the retailer- along with two other rogue sellers - could also lose his licence following a series of stings by cops in communities blighted by underage drinking.

The teenager was sent to buy booze from Mr Ali's Premier Newsflash store on Maryhill Road.

Like all test buyers used by officers, she was said to have looked "obviously" underage. But the girl wasn't questioned by licensee Mr Ali when he sold her the drink.

When the Evening Times asked Mr Ali about the incident he was defiant - despite pleading guilty at court. He said: " She looked older. It was a mistake, that's all. Mistakes happen."

Another worker at the shop, who said he was Mr Ali's brother, said: "My brother doesn't want anything in the paper. He's not raped a woman or robbed a post office."

Under the test purchasing scheme, which began last December, police are targeting shops using an "intelligence-led" approach.

One senior officer said: "The shops we are testing are ones which we have had complaints about or we have other intelligence on. This isn't random."

Police are operating a "two-strikes and out" policy and have said they will only move for a licence to be suspended if a shop fails twice.

But every failure is reported to the procurator-fiscal who decides whether to issue a warning or fixed penalty, or take court action. In Mr Ali's case, the fiscal prosecuted after he denied the offence, which took place in December. But on March 31, the day of the trial at Glasgow Sheriff Court, Mr Ali changed his plea to guilty.

Up to the end of last month so-called spy kids were sent into 124 Glasgow premises. More than 200 others have been checked in the rest of the Strathclyde force area.

Thirteen city shops failed once. There have been two double failures and these licensees face suspension hearings in the coming weeks.

Despite Mr Ali failing only once, licensing chiefs could still suspend his licence when it comes up for renewal, although police are not expected to make a formal objection.