A YOUNG Golly badge collector fell foul of complicated charity law when he emblazoned his website with Children in Need's famous Pudsey Bear logo.

Former Queen Katherine School pupil Chris Barron, 21, raised almost £4,500 for the children's charity last year after encouraging fellow collectors of the Robertson's jam company trademark brooches to donate them for auction on the Internet.

However, the post officer worker did not realise he could not use the Pudsey logo without a licence.

The charity wrote and asked him to remove it from his website and newsletters after they were alerted by members of the public, who had complained that they found the Golly trademark "personally offensive".

This week, Children in Need director Martina Milburn travelled from London to Kendal to explain to Chris why he could not use the Pudsey logo.

Chris told The Westmorland Gazette he had been unhappy when asked to remove Pudsey Bear.

"I thought it was a bit stupid, the amount of time I've put in, and I couldn't use their logo on the website." Many people wrote to Children in Need to support him.

However, after the meeting, he said he now felt happy, and understood why the charity did not grant licences to individuals.

"Now that they've explained it, it's become clearer why I'm not allowed to use it, because it's down to the fact a lot of people were using it unofficially and taking the money and not giving it to Children in Need, so they have to take this hard stance to try to eliminate that."

This year, Chris hopes to raise more than £ 10,000 by auctioning Golly badges and selling Golly pins he has had specially made.

All the money raised will go to the charity, except the 30 pence listing fee for each Golly pin to be auctioned, and the cost of having the new badges made.

Charity director Ms Milburn told the Gazette she had found Chris to be "an absolutely charming young man", and there had never been any dispute about all his hard work to raise money for Children in Need, but licences were controlled very tightly, and were not generally given to individuals.

"If people don't spend their time surrounded by charity law, like I have to, it's not the easiest thing to understand.

It was really, I think, a genuine misunderstanding.

At absolutely no stage were we ever there to denigrate his efforts because he's worked extremely hard.

"He certainly wasn't threatened with legal action."

Chris told the Gazette that if he did try to get a licence, it would involve so much paperwork that he would probably have to employ two people, so that would defeat the object.

Ms Milburn said the charity discovered Chris was using Pudsey after receiving five separate complaints.

"Generally speaking they were objecting to the fact Pudsey was being used with Golly badges, and they were something they personally found offensive.

We didn't get into that discussion at all, either with the people who complained or with Chris, because frankly it's irrelevant."

Now Chris and the charity have reached an amicable agreement, they are to post a joint statement on his website.

Chris is also to visit a Children in Need project to report back to his fellow Golly enthusiasts how their donations are being spent.

l Chris hopes to have his website www.tggg.info up and running by today (Friday).