Belgian teen's tattoo nightmare

Recently 18-year-old Kimberley Vlaeminck decided she would like three small tattoos on her face, "Just three little dots," she insisted.

So on Sunday she made her way down to the local parlour in the Belgian town of Courtrai, and told the tattooist what she wanted.

That was probably her first mistake because Vlaeminck lives in the Flemish-speaking part of the country and the tattooist, who was originally from France, only spoke French and English.

Somehow though the two apparently managed to understand one another and Vlaeminck eventually agreed to let him go ahead and give her three little stars because "It would look prettier," she said.

Mistake number two.

And that was quickly followed my mistake number three, as Vlaeminck told the Flemish daily Het Laatste Nieuws, because as soon as he started his work, she dozed off.

"When he started the tattooing I didn't want to feel the pain and so I went to sleep. I had got up at five in the morning," she said.

And when she woke up, Vlaeminck got more than a nasty surprise.

Instead of the promised three little stars, she discovered that she had in fact been given 56 (that's perhaps worth spelling out, fifty-six) of differing hues and sizes stretching along the length of the left of her face.

Horrified at what had happened, Vlaeminck now says she'll have to undergo costly laser treatment to remove them and plans to sue the tattoo artist, Rouslan Toumaniantz.

Now you could be forgiven for thinking there's something a little far-fetched about this story.

After all who could possibly agree to undergoing any form of tattooing on such a sensitive part of the body without being absolutely certain that they knew what they would end up with.

And how could anyone drop off in the process?

Well there is of course an alternative explanation and it comes from the tattooist himself.

Toumaniantz contests Vlaeminck's side of the story and said he had done exactly what she had wanted.

"She agreed to the 56 stars on the left hand side of the face and she was awake the whole time," he said.

"In fact she seemed quote happy with what I had done, and it was only after her father saw it that she changed her mind."

Toumaniantz says he's willing to meet half the costs of any laser treatment to remove the tattoos, but he's also adamant that he's not disappointed with having given Vlaeminck exactly what they had agreed.

"I don't regret anything," he said. "In fact it has all rather given me a good deal of publicity."