A MUM is “disgusted” after a supermarket sold alcohol to her 12-year-old daughter and nine-year-old son even though they were wearing school uniform.

Donna Brannigan’s daughter Skye and son Phoenix went into Asda in London Road, Swanley to buy their mother a surprise birthday present.

When 33-year-old Ms Brannigan opened the wrapping paper she was outraged to discover her children had managed to buy her a box of four chocolate hearts containing a small bottle of champagne.

Two weeks after complaining to the supermarket, she says Asda did not get back to her and keep her informed with how they were handling the situation.

Housewife Ms Brannigan, of Laburnum Avenue, Swanley, said: “I thought they would have kept me informed. It's quite a serious situation selling alchohol to a 12 and 9-year-old.

“I would have at least expected a written apology. Asda is not exactly a small company.”

The mother-of-four added: “How many other children may have managed to do this? I'm disgusted.

“They innocently bought a present for their mum. When I opened it my son looked at me blankly and said he didn’t know it was alcohol because it had hearts in the box.

“If they were the kind of children to drink alcohol on their own, who knows what kind of trouble they would have got themselves into.”

When Ms Brannigan rang Asda to find out what had happened, she says she was told the person who had overseen the sale of alcohol to her children had been sacked.

She said her children had bought the present using the self-service checkouts however the supervising member of staff was required to enter a code to approve the sale.

Despite this her son and daughter were still sold the alcohol.

A spokeswoman for Asda issued an apology and admitted the supermarket got it wrong.

She said: "We have a strict Challenge 25 policy on alcohol which we enforce across all our stores but on this occasion we didn't get it right and we're very sorry.

"In the small number of instances where we get it wrong, as we did in this instance, we take every opportunity to rebrief colleagues on the importance of ensuring we don't sell alcohol - including gift sets - to anyone under-age."