Brian Curtis, a retired senior Food Standards Agency official, who now works as a freelance food safety consultant, told a public inquiry that the use of a single vacuum packing machine for both raw and cooked meat at E. coli butcher William Tudor’s factory was “like playing Russian Roulette." adding,

"It seems to me, in a crude analysis, it is a bit like playing Russian Roulette. You might get away with it the first time, the second time, the third time, but progressively you have a greater chance the gun will go off and what we are talking about is a nine-month period."

The South Wales Echo also reports that Mr Curtis told the inquiry yesterday that a document produced by Tudor — his HACCP plan —  "was not a valid plan. It was not a safe plan,"  but that Bridgend council’s environmental health officers, “failed to identify the deficiencies and weaknesses” of the document.

Mr Curtis also said there had been flaws in the way Tudor’s was inspected because there were too many announced visits that allowed him to prepare and that the inspections themselves had not been undertaken thoroughly, stating,

"There was a failure in the series of inspections to identify poor hygiene and working practices and a failure to take action."