Baby Show caught in the crossfire

The hundreds of visitors descending on the Baby Show at Earl's Court today are there to check out buggies, prams, babygros and maternity clothes. But behind the scenes a row has broken out over the organisers' links to the defence industry, leading to the sponsors Bounty withdrawing their stand at the exhibition.

Unicef has also stopped accepting donations from ticket sales because the exhibition's owner Clarion Events also runs controversial arms trade fairs. Clarion, which will also be running the Spirit of Christmas show next month, picked up the DSEi, ITEC and LAAD defence shows from the publishing company Reed Elsevier earlier this year.

Then in September it added the submarine exhibitions UDT Europe and UDT Asia Pacific to its portfolio.

DSEi – Defence Systems and Equipment International – is an exhibition held every two years in London for the defence industry and last year attracted 26,500 visitors and 1,352 exhibitors from 40 countries.

Clarion's brochure for the next show – to be held in September next year – boasts that the east London venue ExCeL allows "warships to berth alongside the exhibition halls".

The Campaign Against the Arms Trade wrote to Baby Show exhibitors to inform them of Clarion's defence shows, prompting letters from Clarion reassuring them that their exhibitions served the "legitimate global defence industry".

"Congratulations to those companies and customers who have stood up and said that the owners of the Baby Show should not be running arms fairs," said a CAAT spokesman. "Clarion is out of touch with public opinion. They can restore their reputation only by ending their involvement in the arms trade."Clarion chief executive Simon Kimble said: "Our ethics are important to us and we serve only the legitimate defence and security industry. Exhibitors and visitors must adhere to the highest regulatory scrutiny. We insist they not just comply with, but exceed, UK and international law.

"Defence and security is a legitimate business and like any other show we run we apply the same very high standards, rigour, experience and skill to organising events in this sector as we do in all of our others.

"Our defence and security exhibitions are just that, exhibitions, no weapons are for sale at the events and any business done would, in any case, be regulated by the toughest export regime in the world. We agree with the UN that the legitimate defence industry, regulated by a binding international treaty, is the best way to end the illegal trade in weapons."

Bounty, the baby products company that has more than 3 million members in its parenting club, confirmed it was not intending to exhibit at the Baby Show. But it remains a sponsor of the show, with its name featuring prominently at today's event and with a high-profile credit on the Baby Show website.

"We are not exhibiting at the Baby Show this weekend," a spokeswoman for Bounty said.

Unicef was going to take donations from ticket sales to provide tetanus vaccines, as part of a scheme it runs with Pampers nappies, but decided to sever ties after it learned of the Baby Show's link to DSEi.

"We have taken the matter very seriously and can confirm that we will not be accepting any donations from Clarion Events," Unicef said in a statement.

"Clarion Events is not a corporate partner of Unicef UK and we have not received any money from them to date. We would like to make it clear that neither Pampers nor Unicef will be accepting any financial donation by Clarion Events.

"We would like to reassure the public who have already bought tickets to the Baby Show that their donation will be recognised by Pampers who have offered to make an additional donation to the vaccine campaign, covering the entire amount that was expected to be raised from ticket sales."