Restaurant fined £12,000 for cockroach infestation

The owners of a cockroach and mouse infested restaurant in Notting Hill has been fined £5,000 and ordered to pay £6,843.67 costs after admitting health and safety breaches.

The owners of the Modhubon Restaurant, in Pembridge Road - Castler Ltd, based in Whitechapel Road, London - pleaded guilty to four separate breaches of Food Hygiene (England) Regulations last week.

West London Magistrates were told that food safety officers from Kensington and Chelsea Council made the grim discovery during a routine inspection of the premises on 27 June 2006.

Dead insects and mouse droppings were found next to food stores at the restaurant.

The court was told that officers found cockroaches at different life cycles underneath the preparation table whilst a dead cockroach was found in a box of stem ginger.

They also found mouse droppings amongst food on shelving units and inside a box containing hand towels.

In the main lobby area next to the kitchen there were two cardboard boxes of poppadoms - the boxes were not covered and grease from the poppadoms had saturated the cardboard. A dead cockroach was also found behind one of the boxes.

The court was told that food was poorly stored and inspectors found there was no system of stock rotation in place to enable staff to identify high-risk food.

Inside a small chest freezer, raw meat was stored next to ice cream - mouse droppings were also found in sinks and on over-trays.

Officers closed the restaurant immediately - it was reopened approximately four weeks later after they were satisfied the restaurant was no longer a health risk.

Cllr Fiona Buxton, Cabinet Member for Environmental Health said: “We take health and safety breaches like this very seriously - our priority is to ensure that when customers visit a restaurant it is clean and meets high hygiene standards.”

Don't miss the 24dash.com audio bulletins for the latest news and information - http://www.24dash.com/podcasts