Food safety round-up: Hemel food business fined over poor hygiene and Stoke Rochford Hall fined after health and safety breaches

Hemel food business fined over £14k for poor hygiene and unnecessary suffering of invading mice

A food business in Hemel Hempstead has been fined £14,800 for breaching food safety, hygiene and animal welfare laws at its premises.

Hemel Foods Ltd and its Director Ishrat Nasar were fined after an investigation by Dacorum Borough Council’s Environmental Health Officers.

On the 11 September 2018, Environmental Health Officers visited the premises known as Hemel Foods, after receiving a complaint regarding poor food hygiene conditions and pests.

During the visit to the premises, numerous contraventions were observed by Dacorum Borough Council’s Environmental Health Officers, including failing to put in place adequate procedures to control pests and a poor level of cleanliness.

The incorrect use of glue traps was also observed resulting in the unnecessary suffering of mice.

The officers advised the business operator of the work that needed to be carried out to comply with the law, but further contraventions were witnessed on four more visits to the premises.

Following a trial at St Albans Magistrates Court, the limited company and Mr Nasar were fined £7,400 each and were ordered to pay the full cost of the prosecution of £17,131.58, and a victim surcharge of £170 each.

Owners of Stoke Rochford Hall near Grantham fined after health and safety breaches

The owners of Stoke Rochford Hall Hotel, near Grantham, have been fined a six-figure sum after a successful prosecution by South Kesteven District Council for breaches of health and safety regulations.

After pleading guilty to eight charges at Lincoln Magistrates Court the company, Stoke Rochford Hall 1, formerly Talash No. 6 Ltd, was fined a total of £220,000 and ordered to pay costs of £32,606 plus a £170 victim surcharge.

The hotel first came to SKDC’s attention after a council food, health and safety officer visited on 31 May 2017, for a routine food hygiene inspection and noticed there was a damaged electrical cable across a walkway on the kitchen floor and exposed cables in the dish wash area.

The company admitted:

• Failing to comply with an improvement notice that required the electrical installation at the venue to be inspected and tested by a competent person; any work’s required in the electrician’s report to make the electrical installation safe; and where work was required, to provide satisfactory documentation that it had been completed.
• Failing to report an accident within the statutory time period after a member of staff was injured in a fall at the premises.
• Failing to provide staff with suitable and sufficient information, instruction and training, regarding a substance hazardous to health.
• Failing to prevent, or adequately control, the exposure of staff to substances hazardous to health.
• Failing to operate Stoke Rochford Hall in such a way that people not employed there, who might be affected, were not exposed to risks to their health and safety in that it failed to implement measures to monitor and control the risk of legionella.
• Failing to ensure, so far as was reasonably practicable, the health, safety and welfare at work of its employees, by failing to implement measures to monitor and control the risk of legionella.
• Failing to ensure that all systems, as far as was reasonably practicable, prevented danger in that exposed cabling and cable connectors in the bathroom of a room in Woodland Lodge presented a risk of electric shock.
• Failing to operate the hotel and gym in such a way as to ensure people not employed there were not exposed to risks to their health and safety.

The offences were committed between 28 February 2017 and 26 January 2019.

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