A store in Croydon’s Whitgift Shopping Centre has been fined £24,000 after the council’s food safety inspectors found evidence of a large mouse infestation in food storage and sales areas (Photos on Flickr).
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Croydon magistrates were told, on Tuesday (19 June), that officers visited the store on 22 November, last year, as part of a programmed inspection of food premises.
They found contamination of food in a number of areas, including mouse droppings on food items, chewed food packaging and a dead mouse in a storeroom.
On the shop floor, foodstuffs such as sweets and nuts had spilled from packs that appeared to have been chewed through, and droppings were found on the shelving. Some chewed and contaminated packets appeared to have been patched with adhesive tape, apparently in order that they might yet be sold.
The officers considered that the conditions were a risk to the public’s health and immediately prohibited the store from selling food, a decision that was later ratified by Croydon Magistrates’ Court. The food aisles were closed and damaged stock removed.
In court this week, Poundland pleaded guilty to five contraventions of food hygiene regulations.
The company was fined a total of £24,000 and ordered to pay a victim surcharge of £15 and council costs of £2,910, a total of £26,925. The most serious offence, that of selling unfit food, drew a £12,000 penalty, half the total fines sum.
Councillor Simon Hoar, cabinet member for community safety, said: “This was a dreadful disregard of food hygiene standards by a store in the town’s largest shopping centre that’s patronised by many people every day.
“The scale of the total fine should remind traders that they have a heavy duty of responsibility to their customers and that the council will not hesitate to prosecute if that responsibility appears to have been shirked.
“To their credit, once the matter had been drawn to their attention, the store’s management took the matter seriously and immediately instigated a thorough cleansing of the storage areas, and the shopfloor and fittings.”
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