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A dad has suffered a DIY tattoo nightmare after misspelling his son's name in an inking on his arm.

Hapless Tom Moffatt, 27 , tattooed 'Riley' into his left arm - but soon scribbled over the inking after realising he had misspelt the tot's name.

Moffatt, from Ashton-under-Lyne in Tameside, Greater Manchester, also wrote the name on his hand and misspelt 'sony boy' and carved a wonky cross into his forearm just months after the birth of the four-year-old in 2012.

(Image: Spike TV / Mercury Press)

Tom, who also has a daughter Kya, two, with partner Rachael Higgins, 23, was shocked at how easy it was for him to buy a £70 ink gun off the internet and tattoo himself while drunk in his living room.

Tom said: "I'd never picked up a tattoo gun in my life and I got told by my brother not to do it at the time but I just didn't listen.

"Now, my family are always saying 'you're an idiot, Tom' and there are plenty of jokes at my expense from my mates - I can't repeat what they say about it.

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(Image: Spike TV / Mercury Press)

"I have to hide my arm when I go for interviews and the week after, when I've got the job, my boss asks what's on my arm and I just tell him it's late now.

"Even Riley has started to notice and points at those tattoos and says 'daddy, I don't like those ones'. It's a nightmare."

Tom, who is a machine operator working on NHS hospital equipment, has just had his second session at nearby Maria Patricia Tattoo Removals in his bid to get the botched arm art lasered off.

(Image: Spike TV / Mercury Press)

And Tom is using his ordeal to urge youngsters not to follow in his footsteps.

Tom said: "I've got a long journey ahead of me to get them all off and I pressed it so deep in one that it's going to be very difficult to get it off.

"But once I've got them off, my job isn't done.

"We want to try and get a campaign going so people like me can't just go out and buy a gun with no questions asked.

(Image: Spike TV / Mercury Press)

"You shouldn't be able to go on the internet as a 15-year-old Joe Bloggs and buy one and I want to get the message out there that tattoos should only be done by professionals."

The owner of the practice Maria insists that Tom's case is a stark warning against the dangers of unregulated ink work.

Maria said: "There needs to be more regulation. People don't realise the dangers of the buying off tattoo guns and ink off the internet.

(Image: Spike TV / Mercury Press)

"Tom did just that and had to Google the instructions of how to use it.

"It might seem like a laugh with mates when you're drunk but it's not easy to fix the damage and people can be left with scarring if they're not careful.

"We're all for tattoos but people need to be aware they can wreck lives and make it difficult to get jobs."

Embarrassed Tom will appear in Tattoo Disasters UK on Channel Five's new channel Spike at 9pm on Tuesday.