The grim hygiene conditions at a town centre all-you-can-eat buffet restaurant where health inspectors found a rodent infestation, live cockroaches and mouse droppings in a bag of rice, can be revealed after one of the operators was found guilty of breaching 19 food hygiene regulations.

Hend Hamude and Mardan Mahmood, the operators of North End’s Babylon Inn, were charged with a host of food hygiene breaches at Camberwell Green Magistrates’ Court on September 23.

Hamude, who denied 19 charges, claimed she was not in charge of food hygiene in the buffet, but a District Judge found against her.

Her husband, Mahmood – a doctor who runs a private surgery in Croydon and is based at Lewisham Hospital – earlier pleaded guilty to 19 food safety offences and 36 on behalf of Babylon Inn Ltd, of which he is a director.

The court was told how council officers had inspected the premises five times in the four years it has been trading as Babylon Inn, since its conversion to an Asian buffet restaurant from the Cartwright Inn pub.

They found that the company:

– failed to act on an ‘active’ cockroach infestation in a storage room;

– allowed the cockroach infestation to spread ‘throughout’ the premises;

– did not dispose of food prepared during the infestation;

– failed to effectively clean and disinfect equipment;

– kept cooked meats under an area of flaking ceiling;

– placed pest poison in food preparation areas;

– left high-risk cooked foods at a temperature that might risk health;

– failed to stop someone smoking on the premises;

– failed to put in place adequate procedures to deal with an “active” mouse and rat infestation throughout the basement;

– were caught with mouse droppings in a bag of rice and broken glass near food.