COCKROACH INFESTED RESTAURANT WAS HYGIENE DISASTER WAITING TO HAPPEN

The owner of a Chinese restaurant infested with mice and cockroaches was today (Thurs) spared jail but banned from running a food business indefinitely.

Ellen Chew, 42, ran Inn Noodle in Oxford Street, central London, described as a ‘food hygiene disaster waiting to happen’ after two customers were struck down with salmonella.

Rebecca Katisoris and Stanley Li were both hospitalised after contracting the stomach bug at the restaurant and the noodle chef was also diagnosed with the same illness.

Hygiene inspectors found the kitchens were a haven for vermin and encrusted with grease and dirt.

Chew was given a six-month jail sentence suspended for 18 months, but she was also banned from operating a food business indefinitely.

She was also fined £7,515 and ordered to pay £25,000 towards the costs of the case.

Judge Deborah Taylor said: ‘These were serious and continued breaches of food hygiene legislation where warnings were not taken seriously enough and not enough was done to tackle the problems identified and led to two cases of salmonella poisoning.’

The court heard the restaurant had been repeatedly inspected in the months before Miss Katisoris and Mr Li were struck down after customers sighted cockroaches.

Prosecutor Mark Seymour said that just four weeks before the two customers contracted the illness Chew had been issued with a series of improvement notices and given until September 28 to fix the problems.

But on October 5 2008 after Australian Miss Katisoris dined with a friend at the Inn Noodle she became ill.

Mr Seymour said: ‘She ate at the premises, and ate various dishes, with a friend.

‘The following morning she started suffering diarrhoea, fever and abdominal cramps.

‘By October 9 she had to attend accident and emergency.’

He said doctors later confirmed she had contracted salmonella enteritidis phage 3 – a rare strain of the bug.

My Seymour said the following day Mr Li ate at the Inn Noodle.

‘He began to feel sick, after eating at lunchtime, at about 10pm.

‘The following day he too was suffering from diarrhoea and stomach.

‘By the following day he had gone to hospital where he ended up having to stay for three days,’ he said.

In the wake of the outbreak health inspectors were called in and made a series of horrific discoveries.

The found a build-up of cockroach faeces behind a fridge and containers of raw meat piled next to a sink used for washing dirty plates.

He said they also discovered mice droppings in a bowl of ginger and chilli mix and a ‘strong smell’ of mice urine behind a fridge.

Checks were also carried out on food at the premises and one bowl of rice was found to have high levels of Ecoli and other potentially harmful bacteria.

Three dishcloths being used to wash clean plates and wipe dirty surfaces were found to have the same strain of salmonella present on them.

He said: ‘The officer formed the view that in all the circumstances the state of the premises and thee equipment in it was such as to cause imminent risk of injury to health.

‘An emergency prohibition notice was served there and then requiring it to close immediately.’

Mr Seymour said Chew had been repeatedly advised of the difficulties the restaurant faced.

He said: ‘This was a food hygiene disaster waiting to happen.’

Hugo Charlton, for Chew, argued that much of the problem had been caused by a fire at a a next door property which had left the neighbouring building empty and prone to infestation.

Judge Taylor rejected the claim however and said Chew was responsible for a ‘serious failure of management’.

She was ordered to pay both victims £500.

Chew, of (40) Basque Court, Garter Way, Rotherhithe, southeast London, admitted two counts of placing on the market food deemed unsafe; and four counts of failing to comply with European food safety legislation.

The charges stated that on October 5 and 6, 2008, food contaminated with salmonella was served.

Chew’s company Bravenewcorp Ltd, which owned the restaurant and was previously charged in relation to hygiene breaches, has now been wound up.

ENDS