In what I have read and what I learned from the conversation the CE mark is granted once your item has passed testing, like a Kite mark or Corgi (GasSafe) registration for other walks of life. Otherwise people would just be printing off CE marks off Google images! I would assume that using the CE mark without approval would probably carry heftier fines than not to be honest, but thats just personal opinion. Wouldn't that be like just making up and adding "Approved by xxx" or the British Standard kite mark to products yourself, surely that's fraud/ deception?
Is the Welsh website you looked at definitely a current page? Reason I ask is that the law changed Europe-wide in June or July last year (yes I've been busy reading), before this date you could self-certify items for sale as long as you could show you had shown diligence to make them safe, but this changed last year when ALL items that are either classed as toys, aimed at anyone under 14 or destined to be used by children (whether its cuddly bears or wooden blocks) must be tested by an official body and meet BS EN71: Parts 1-3. The guy was telling me this prevents people suing the maker or the maker being found to be breaking the EU law. And that counts whether you are making at home, as a business, selling at craft fairs, ebay, shops etc etc... and thats before you even start with product and public liability insurance.....
I sound like I know what I'm talking about but I've just done a lot of reading in the last few days and the phonecall today really tore the guts out of my plans
To be honest though, my view is they cant police everyone, and if the "business" as it were is fairly low key I think you'd stay under the radar. If you make sure your items are safe then there shouldn't be any problem.
Its when something does happen, (god forbid) a child gets hurt or ill, first thing the parents do is contact you and solicitors and they find out you haven't been the right side of the law or faking a CE logo.... well, you can imagine.
Sorry to join a really good forum with such a rubbish and depressing topic but I feel its hugely valid potentially for you/ us all!
The guy at Trading Standards emailed me a load of info about it today, and happy to forward on to any interested people on here. Just drop me a PM with your email address and I'll ping over to you.
On the plus side its sunny outside :|
Cheers, Chris