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Despite repeated council visits and numerous warnings from food safety officers a local butcher has been fined over £4,000, including costs, for a string of food hygiene offences.
Mr Mohammed Qadeer appeared in Croydon Magistrates Court on 5 July and pleaded guilty to three offences, for each of which he received a fine of £1,000. He was also ordered to pay a further £1,050 in costs and victim surcharges.
MM Halal Meat, at 1575 London Road, Norbury, was visited on 13 January 2009 as part of a routine council food hygiene inspection.
The officer checked conditions throughout the shop and issued a report noting problems with pest control and cleaning and a lack of any food safety management system. This report was given to the owner with advice on how to make improvements.
However in August the council received a complaint concerning bad smells and flies at the rear of the shop. Another visit on the 19th of that month found that conditions had in fact worsened considerably.
There was a build up of fat, blood and food debris, meat waste bins were attracting flies and cuts of meat were being put directly onto a dirty floor. The toilet wash hand basin was not connected to the drain and no proper cleaning materials were evident.
Six further inspections were carried out through August and September of 2009, but significant improvements were slow to be made. As a result a hygiene improvement notice was eventually served on the shop in October of that year. This resulted in the business employing a food safety consultant who confirmed to the council that staff had been trained and that work was underway to correct all of the other problems.
However a follow-up visit by the council in August 2010 found that conditions had once again deteriorated. Cleansing was poor, there were pharaoh ants and rodent droppings evident and although checks were being made on stored food temperatures there was no action being taken when these were found to be wrong. By October the shop had still not been pest proofed, the meat chiller was in poor repair and a string of other problems with cleansing were also noted.
This left the council’s food safety team no option but to prosecute for:
- Failure to provide adequate procedures for controlling pests
- Failure to keep the premises clean and in good repair
- Failure to comply with the Hygiene Improvement Notice
Since this legal action was taken the property has been re-inspected and is currently undergoing structural refurbishment.
Councillor Simon Hoar, cabinet member for community safety, said: “Prosecution is always a last resort as we spend a lot of time advising and educating businesses such as this about their legal responsibilities. However the safety of the public is always our prime concern, and when people repeatedly fail to act on what we tell them we have no choice but to use the law in this way. In the most extreme cases we will close down premises if they still fail to meet the required standards.”
