Matalan urgently recalls £12 children's clothing over ‘risk of being strangled' & warns ‘stop using immediately'
The British retailer made the decision after deciding that a number of boy's swim shorts posed a serious risk to kids.
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The Boys Blue Shark Rash Vest & Short Set was recalled
Credit: Matalan
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Matalan also recalled the seersucker swimshort blue
Credit: Matalan
The recall affects the blue shark rash vest and shorts worth £12 on the website at the time of writing.
The other two products recalled were the seersucker swimshorts in blue and the boys tie dye swimshorts.
Parents were urged to take the faulty items away from little ones and return them "immediately" to a Matalan store.
All three products could cause entrapment and strangulation, warned the retailer.
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Matalan stressed that no receipt will be required to claim the refund.
Matalan said: "It has come to our attention that the above boys' swim shorts do not meet our usual high standards for quality and safety, as there is a high possibility of entrapment and strangulation with the draw cord."
The company also urged customers who bought the swimwear as gifts to inform others about the recall notice straight away.
It added: "If you have bought the above for someone else or know someone who has one then please let them know
immediately about this notice."
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Matalan apologised for the inconvenience caused to shoppers and confirmed that the recall does not affect any other products.
The retailer added: "We pride ourselves on delivering great quality at great prices, and we're really sorry for any inconvenience caused."
The Office for Product Safety and Standards (OPSS) also issued an alert to British shoppers regarding the recall.
'Contaminated' Costco snack recalled as 'small pieces of wood' are found inside it – eight products are affected
The Government department explained that the dangerous swimwear fails to meet General Product Safety Regulations 2005 due to the excessive length of functional draw cords in the garments.
Officials also emphasised that shoppers should stop using the products right away.
Those with further queries can contact Matalan's Customer Care Team on 0333 0044444 or email customercareceo@matalan.co.uk.
It comes after a
The product, sold on Amazon, has been flagged as a safety risk.
It came after authorities found that its attachable canopy could lift the float from the water in windy conditions, putting children in danger.
The alert was issued in the UK following a border inspection.
The blue and yellow sea-themed swim seat, intended for babies and toddlers, poses a 'serious risk of injuries', according to the Product Safety Report.
If the float becomes airborne, a child could be thrown out and suffer an impact injury or drown.
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The boys tie dye swimshorts, which vary in colour, were also recalled
Credit: Matalan
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And most of that is because of the strange world of pharmaceutical manufacturing, internal pricing and tax regime arbitrage that US pharma companies are so good at. On landing in Scotland, Mr Trump was asked what areas are outstanding to be negotiated with the EU. He said about twenty areas, but said he was not going to list them off. It felt like a deflection, not an answer. Trump says US-EU agreement would be 'biggest of them all' The uncertainty of the past six months has been paralysing for many investment decisions on both sides of the Atlantic. And that is important, because as Mr Trump said yesterday evening, getting an agreement with the EU would be "the biggest of them all". Because the EU-US trade in goods, services and investment is by far the biggest and most important in the world. The US President has decided to charge an entry fee to the US market. He believes - correctly - that the market is so valuable to outsiders that they will pay more to do business here. The art of this particular deal is finding out the realistic limits of bearable pain. For Japan it was 15% - down from the 25% they were told to expect. Once that news broke on Tuesday night, it was the tipping point for the EU, which had been hoping for a 10% tariff, but had been told 15% would be more like it. It is pretty much what the EU has been charged for the past three months - a 10% general baseline tariff on top of the 4.8% pre-existing average tariff rate on EU goods coming into the US. The impacts of that have yet to play out. And if the 'closer' and his visitor from Brussels cannot close the deal tomorrow? The US is set to impose a 30% tariff rate on the EU on 1 August. But according to US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, talks on a final deal would continue, and the rate could still come down. But the 30% would act as a spur to the talks. The EU also made moves to show it was reaching the end of the rope as far as talks with the US are concerned. On Thursday, member state governments approved a retaliatory package on $70 billion of US exports, on top of an earlier $23 billion of tariffs on US steel and aluminium products. A third package of levies on US services exports has also been floated in the Brussels ether. The EU tariffs on $90 billion of US imports will go into effect on 7 August - if there is no deal this weekend. Mr Trump is one of those people who always has to feel he has gotten one over whoever he is doing a deal with; the sort who always tries to chip a little extra in the end. Ms von der Leyen ought to be prepared to give a little sweetener. Will it be in some aspect of trade or taxation, or will it be old fashioned cash?. Last Tuesday, Mr Trump spent 75 minutes talking in person with Japan's trade envoy Ryosei Akazawa, screwing an extra $150 billion out of the Japanese for an investment fund that the US government will direct. It helped to "buy" them a tariff cut, according to US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, who claimed credit for the idea of the "tariff buy down". Market access will affect trade deal with Japan, says Lutnick Mr Lutnick said in an interview for Bloomberg that market access was always going to be a big issue in any trade deal with Japan. He did not see the Japanese opening their market to the extent the US wanted, so looked for another way. His solution was a fund of $400 billion, which the Japanese would put at the disposal of the US. Mr Trump, the 'closer', bumped that up to $550 billion before he said "deal" and shook hands. So what is this $550 billion for? It is not an investment by Japanese companies, according to Mr Lutnick. He told Bloomberg on Wednesday the Japanese will be bankers, supplying the money to pay for American projects. The Japanese cut will be 10% of the profits: "The Japanese are going to give America the ability to choose the projects, decide the projects and execute the projects. Suppose we want to build a generic antibiotics plant - America doesn't make antibiotics anymore - the Japanese will finance the project and we will give it to an operator, and the profits will be split 90% to the United States, and ten percent to the Japanese," he said. "So the Japanese have basically brought down their tariff rate due to this commitment that 'we will back what you Mr President want to build in America that are key to national security concerns, we will back that'," he added. He said the money can be equity, loans or loan guarantees. "They are the banker, not the operator - this is not a Japanese company like Toyota coming in and building a factory - this is America saying we want generic pharmaceuticals, microchips etc". Mr Lutnick - who claims to talk to Mr Trump daily at 1am by phone - said he came up with the idea in January to get the equivalent of market access for the US and a tariff rate at which the Japanese car makers - who account for the vast bulk of Japan's trade surplus with the US, can live with. "15% is right on the line where they can still build cars in Japan - huge amounts here as well - but $550 billion bought that," he said. "For the Europeans it is 25%, for South Korea it is 25% - the Japanese have bought 15% by giving Donald Trump the means to invest. We'll see what happens in the EU and South Korea talks, but let's be clear: Donald Trump has put pressure on them," he added. Peter Navarro, a senior trade advisor in the Trump administration and ideologue of a hard line on foreigners, especially China, said of the $550 billion : "its a blank cheque to invest in America: it's going to used to cure our supply chain vulnerabilities - this is really important: we've seen in the pandemic we were exposed on pharmaceuticals, we have a chip problem with too many of the chips made offshore: we've seen Chinese export restrictions on gallium, rare earth magnets, critical minerals. "Howard Lutnick is going to be the symphony orchestra guy on this - we are going to figure out every vulnerability we have in our economy with the help of the Japanese," he added. Medical devises may be excluded from tariffs The EU is of course the home of the car, specifically Germany where the internal combustion engine was invented. A deal on cars is huge for Germany as well. So is a deal on spirits - especially for the Irish whiskey industry and French and Italian liquor makers. Medical devices are another really important area for Ireland that may be excluded altogether from tariffs, according to some of the chatter reported late last week. For the Irish Government, which has become so dependent on corporation tax revenues - far more than is the case in most countries - the potential hit to revenues from Mr Trump's tariffs are what causes it sleepless nights. But it is not just tariffs that are making life more difficult for Irish and European exporters to the US. The dollar has weakened against the Euro since Mr Trump took power, making foreign imports more expensive for Americans to buy. The tariff comes on top of that. On leaving the White House yesterday, Mr Trump extolled the virtues of a weaker dollar. "The weak dollar makes you a hell of a lot more money. So when we have a strong dollar, one thing happens, it sounds good, but you don't do any tourism. "You can't sell factories, you can't sell trucks, you can't sell anything. It is good for inflation, that's about it. And we have no inflation. We've wiped out inflation. So when I see it (the dollar) down there, I don't lose sleep over it, put it that way," he added. As for other countries, Mr Trump said "We have the outlines of a deal with China" (Mr Bessent is meeting his opposite number in Stockholm on Monday and Tuesday for more trade talks). But he did not hold out much hope for Canada, the US' number three trade partner: "We haven't really had a lot of luck with Canada. I think Canada could be one where they'll just pay tariffs, not really a negotiation." Next Friday is the closing deadline for this round of tariff related deals, as far as the US President is concerned. He plans to send letters out to close to 200 countries over the next week "I'm not looking to hurt countries", he said yesterday morning. "I could - I could do that too, but I'm not looking to do that. But when that letter goes out, that's a deal. "Now, we sent one to Japan, we sent one to the EU, and they came back and negotiated a deal. I think the EU has got a pretty good chance of making a deal," he added.
