Officer defends butcher decision

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An environmental health officer has defended a decision to allow a butcher to continue using a single meat packing machine before an E.coli outbreak.

The Bridgend butcher was the source of the 2005 outbreak which affected 150 children and adults and killed one boy.

Angela Coles said she had some concerns over the machine being used for cooked and uncooked meat, when she inspected.

But she told the Cardiff inquiry: "From a cleanliness point of view, I didn't think it was that bad."

Ms Coles said made her first inspection of John Tudor & Son in Bridgend in January, 2005.

William Tudor, the butcher who was later jailed, was not there, she said, and she was told he had taken all the records she wanted to inspect.

William Tudor was given a 12-month prison sentence

Records from that day were also unavailable which Ms Coles noted with four exclamation marks.

She said she also had concerns about untrained staff and found 12 hygiene breaches, including knives being washed in hand basins.

Ms Coles said she was concerned a single machine was being used for both cooked and uncooked meat.

She said she recognised that this was a cross-infection risk which could lead to an E.coli outbreak.

But she was told that the second machine was being repaired and would be back within a week and she said she was satisfied the one in use was being cleaned and disinfected properly.

James Eadie, counsel for the inquiry, asked her: "Did the 12 points inspire you with confidence that this business could be trusted to clean appropriately?"

Legal requirement

"I was happy and confident with what they told me," she said. "I can only act on what I see at the time. I can't predict what is going to happen."

The second machine was not there when she carried out a follow-up visit in February 2005.

But the records were, and Ms Coles said she could see that running with one machine was a breach of Tudor's own hazard control plan.

But she said he could have changed that plan to operate with one machine, because it was not a legal requirement to have two.

There was still no second machine when she inspected in July 2005.

Mason Jones, five, died after eating contaminated cooked meat

Ms Coles said she could not remember what explanation was given then but she said on each visit the machine had been clean though she did raise other concerns in July.

She also made a data entry error which led to Tudor wrongly having his risk level reduced.

The inquiry also heard how William Tudor got his butcher's licence when the scheme was introduced in 2001.

Jamie Davies, the environmental health officer who inspected the company, thought Tudor should have completed an intermediate food handling course.

But other butchers were having similar problems so Bridgend Council made them sit an exam instead.

There were 26 questions and the pass mark was 50%.

Mr Eadie said that seemed a bit low if he could get half the questions wrong and still be trusted with public safety.

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.