Tag Archives: Wales

E. coli butcher encouraged ill staff to prepare meat

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The public inquiry into the 2005 E. coli outbreak in Wales began yesterday and already the evidence is shocking — or, maybe, all too common.

Professor Chris Griffith, head of the food research and consultancy unit at the University of Wales Institute, Cardiff, was asked by South Wales Police to compile a report assessing the health risk posed by John Tudor and Son butchers.

Media Wales is reporting that,

E. coli butcher William Tudor encouraged staff suffering from stomach bugs and diarrhoea to continue preparing meat for school dinners.

He was also aware of cross contamination between raw and cooked meats, but did nothing to prevent it.

Some 150 schoolchildren were sickened in the outbreak and five-year-old Mason Jones died in October 2005.

Prof Griffith was quoted as telling the inquiry,

"Packaging in which raw meat had been delivered was subsequently used to store cooked product," and that a cleaning schedule at the factory was so bad it was "a joke."

Yesterday the inquiry was told that a routine inspection of John Tudor and Son in January 2005, by Bridgend Council environmental health officer Angela Coles, found that one vacuum-packing machine – referred to in the inquiry as a vac-packing machine – was being used to package raw and cooked meats – a potentially serious source of cross-contamination, and that there were no facilities for small equipment – such as knives – to be cleaned.

Leaders have foresight

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The Western Mail writes in a scathing editorial this morning that the conditions in some Welsh schools, outlined in the final report of the E. coli O157 outbreak in 2005 that left a five-year-old dead and over 100 sick, would shame the Third World.

"It’s time to ensure children are not placed in environments which are breeding grounds for disease … to tolerate a situation where schools do not have toilet rolls, soap or hot water is reprehensible."

Hindsight is 20-20. What does it take to have foresight, to realize it’s not enough to tell someone to wash their hands, but to also remove any barriers to handwashing and ensure the proper tools — soap and paper towel — are available.

Outrage

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Sharon Mills, the mother of five-year-old Mason Jones, said she will campaign for a change in the law after William John Tudor, the butcher who caused the Wales E. coli O157 outbreak that killed Mason, was jailed for 12 months, adding it "sends a strong message that a change in the law is needed."

Mills told Western Mail that the jail term was a “joke”, adding,

“Mason was a five-year-old with the rest of his life ahead of him. This person will spend just six months behind bars. It seems the law is a joke.”

Mills told the South Wales Echo that,

“What Mason went through was horrific and six months is a joke really. Six months is just not enough for what he did. William Tudor will be back with his family in six months’ time. Mason will never return to ours.”

Despite working as a butcher since he was 16 and completing an advanced food hygiene course, the presiding judge said that Tudor had a “careless and make-do approach” towards food safety and cleanliness at his factory.

Tudor, 55, allowed cooked ham, turkey and lamb, which he supplied to schools across the South Wales valleys, to become contaminated with E. coli at his factory, specifically a vacuum-packaging machine which was used for both cooked and raw meats.

A prosecuting lawyer said, "In the defendant’s own words, it was not uncommon for pieces of raw meat to get into the chamber of the vacuum packer."

At one time Tudor had two of these machines, which can cost from as little as £1,300, but one was not replaced when it broke.

When inspectors visited the factory on September 19, after the E.coli outbreak had been declared, they found congealed blood, dead insects and cobwebs in the machine.

E. coli butcher jailed

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The South Wales Argus Newsdesk has just reported that William John Tudor, 55, of Clemenstone, Cowbridge, Vale of Glamorgan, the butcher who supplied schools with meat infected with E. coli O157, was given a 12-month prison sentence today after admitting six counts of placing unsafe food on the market and one count of failing, as proprietor of a business, to protect food against the risk of contamination.

The outbreak killed five-year-old Mason Jones, a pupil of Deri Primary School, near Bargoed.