A public inquiry heard Friday about a string of failures by food safety officers responsible for inspections of William Tudor’s meat plant leading up to the September, 2005 E. coli O157:H7 outbreak.

The South Wales Echo reported that Amy Lewis, an environmental health officer, admitted failing to check Tudor’s claims that his staff had food hygiene certificates – but only after a series of questions by lead counsel to the inquiry James Eadie, including the evidence that Tudor himself had admitted the staff were never trained.

A second officer, Ian Sullivan, who was responsible for advising on a critical food handling plan had only been employed for a few months when he became responsible for supervising Tudor and had never dealt with a business of that size.

A third officer, Joanne Evans, admitted mistakes in filling out forms that affected how often the Bridgend Industrial Estate plant was inspected.

Earlier in the week, Tudor said in a letter read out at the Cardiff inquiry, he followed official hazard analysis guidelines, and the practices used by his firm were supervised by Bridgend Council.

It was also revealed that Tudor, who was sentenced to 12 months in jail for his actions, was released after serving on 12 weeks.

The parents of five-year-old Mason Jones (right), who died during the outbreak, were unaware of Tudor’s early release until the start of this week’s public inquiry and called it a “travesty of justice.”

Garyn Price, 12, who almost died after contracting E.coli during the outbreak, was quoted as saying he was “disgusted” Tudor was allowed out of prison so soon and said,

“I got upset when my mum told me he was out. They should’ve kept him in prison longer. I don’t think he will have learned his lesson.”

There were 157 probable cases of the E.coli O157 strain and 118 confirmed during the outbreak, which was declared on 16 September 2005 and declared over on 20 December that year.

It affected 44 schools across south Wales, making it the largest outbreak of its kind in Wales, and the second biggest in the UK.