ARGOS has launched an urgent investigation after a little Redditch boy received a massive electric shock from a fibre optic tree as he tried to hang a bauble.

Sarah Allard and her son Billy, who turns three next month, bought the 6ft tree from the Redditch town centre branch of Argos on Thursday, December 6, and went back to their Oakenshaw home to decorate it.

His mum said Billy went to put a decoration on one of the branches and the next thing she knew, he had been thrown backwards several feet and was screaming.

Miss Allard said: “We were horrified, he was thrown back about three or four feet and I just didn’t know what to do so put him straight into the car and rushed him to A&E.

“He had small burns on his hands and one of his eyebrows was singed, and he also had to have an ECG to check his heart was ok but thankfully it was.

“He is built like a little rugby player, but the hospital said if a child who was not quite so robust had been involved, things could have been far worse.

“My tiny baby nephew is moving around in a walker at the moment, I feel sick thinking what would have happened if he had been the one this had happened to.

“I can’t bear the thought that someone else might buy one of these trees and the same thing happens to them.”

An Argos spokesman said: “Argos takes customer safety extremely seriously and we have strict Quality Assurance processes to ensure thatour products comply with the relevant UK and EU safety standards.

“We were very concerned to learn of the fault reported with the 6ft green fibre optic Christmas tree.

“We have made contact with the customer to apologise for any distress or inconvenience that has been caused to her family and are now conducting an urgent investigation into the product concerned to determine what may have caused the issue.”