A tattooed musician has been left devastated after his latest inked addition was embarrassingly misspelled.

Singer Santino Payne had wanted his 11th tattoo to read SKY, but Old London Road Tattoos left him with artwork that read SRY.

Mr Payne, from Surbiton, said he returned to the tattoo parlour to see if they could fix the £350 tattoo but the repair job to the lettering on his bicep left him even more upset.

The tattoo parlour admitted the initial mistake had been made but said it was only 3mm long and said they advised Mr Payne against a cover-up repair job, which he argued aggravated the error.

Owner Jamie O’Grady said: “Mr Payne insisted on a complete cover up which we advised him strongly against on a number of occasions.

“He absolutely insisted upon a cover up on a substantial area upon what was initially the problem was a line of about 3mm long.

“We are an extremely well recognised and well respected shop in the community and on an international level as well.”

Mr Payne, who sings with a band called Poppy’s Field, said he had a discussion with the tattoo artist about whether to have the cover-up and decided to go ahead.

He said his confidence has been knocked by the tattoo and he has already planned to get it fixed at a parlour in Spain, which he thought would cost £800.

The 22-year-old said: “My arm is in a horrendous state.

“When I am doing my gigs all my tattoos are for my music so I like to show them off but I now wear long sleeve tops and cover it up. I am so upset and angered by it.”

He added: “It’s important to me, it’s to do with my music, my lyrics and my grandparents who died.”

Kingston Council Trading Standards said there had been no other complaints made about Old London Road Tattoos.

A spokesman said: “Unless there was a history of this type of error being made we would consider it to be evidence of a one-off breach of contract caused perhaps by carelessness or negligence as opposed to a matter that Trading Standards could consider if it were a recurrent trading practice.”