Tudor jailed for E.coli outbreak

William John Tudor, of John Tudor & Sons in Bridgend, pleaded guilty to six offences of placing unsafe food on the market and one offence of failing as a proprietor of a food business to protect food at Cardiff Crown Court last Friday

Prosceutor Graham Walters said: "There was a simple failure to guard against the risk of cross contamination. Cleaning was inadequate."

The court heard that a vacuum-packing machine was wrongly used for both raw and cooked meats. Evidence submitted to the court included findings that juice from raw meat frequently got into the vacupacker during the packaging process.

Tudor admitted charges relating to six schools, including supplying contaminated meat to Deri Primary School in Bargoed, where Mason Jones was a pupil.

The other charges involve five more junior and primary south Wales primary schools.

He pleaded guilty to charges under the General Food Regulations of "placing unsafe food on the market".

Judge Neil Bidder said that while Tudor was a pillar of society he had substantial culpability and a custodial sentence would send out a message to other food producers. He told Tudor that he put the health of the public at risk for the sake of saving money.

Joy Whinney, director of FSA Wales said that the sentence serves as a reminder to food businesses of the need to be vigilant about public safety and to meet their responsibilities

"Putting public health first must be paramount for all food businesses and failure to do so can, as this case has shown, have tragic consequences."

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