A sex shop owner has vowed to open for business despite losing her bid to sell hardcore films after more than 1,000 people protested.

Kathleen Sutton said Secret Desires in Rowlands Road, Worthing, would be trading in two or three weeks' time even though she was refused a licence.

She said the shop could still open without a licence, but would sell less explicit material including sex toys, clothes, DVDs and magazines.

Councillors deliberated for 75 minutes in secret before rejecting her application.

Coun Tom Wye, chairman of the borough's licensing and control committee, ruled the shop was in an inappropriate area near at least two children's homes.

Earlier, barrister Philip Sinclair, for Miss Sutton and her St Leonards-based firm, Shoptonight Ltd , said: "Seventy per cent of our customers are couples or women.

"Sex shops are no longer seedy backstreet establishments. They are not populated by people in dirty singlets with cigarettes hanging out of the side of their mouths."

But ward councillor John Livermore said: "If it does open let's hope the people of Worthing vote with their feet and don't go near the place."

Leading anti-sex shop campaigner Steve Stevens, who lives about 300 yards from the proposed shop in Rowlands Road, feared it might attract prostitutes to the area.