The
boss of a 'filthy' Pizza Hut fined £16,000 after takeaway sank to a
'deplorable' state
Franchisee Nadim Choudary was prosecuted over the state of the chain's
Stapleford branch after a catalogue of hygiene issues including dirty units and
food stuck to pizza wheels.
Nottingham Crown Court heard that
the self-made businessman still runs five Pizza Huts, with a £6 million total
turnover, and has sold nine others.
Originally from Kashmir, the
36-year-old pleaded guilty to charges under the Food Safety & Hygiene
(England) Regulations 2013 and one offence under the Health and Safety at Work
Act 1974.
He was ordered to pay £16,000 with
£3,846.71 costs and a £120 victim surcharge, while the company he runs – Ocean
Success Ltd – was fined £1,000.
But speaking to the Post after the case
tonight, philanthropist Choudary, of Cumberland Close, Northampton, admitted he
ran the business from a distance.
He said: "I wasn't directly
involved; I trusted people to do the job I paid them to do and they let me
down. I'm not a criminal. I care about my staff deeply. My other businesses have
got food hygiene ratings of four and five stars."
The court was told that a former member
of staff made a complaint to Broxtowe Borough Council about the conditions in
the Stapleford branch, in Derby Road.
Inspectors visited and gave it a
zero-star hygiene rating in July 2015, ordering Choudary, who had not
registered the business with the council, to make improvements. He was given
time to fix the problems but they were not done in time and so he was cautioned
and charged.
Judge Michael Stokes QC told him that
the vast majority of his large number of businesses were run in a
"extremely proper, safe and legitimate way", with the exception of
the Stapleford branch.
He said: "Now I appreciate that
anybody running a little business empire like yours can't personally deal with
everything and you have to rely on other people; managers and employees."
The court heard that Choudary had been
warned in 2014 that the Stapleford branch needed attention and he accepted a caution.
Judge Stokes said it should have served as a warning to the businessman that
he needed to keep his eye on that franchise.
He said: "One only has to look at
the photos in this case to understand the quite deplorable state of these
premises.
"Not only was there an electrical
fault, but filthy units where pizzas were produced, unclean staff facilities
and the like; basically the condition of these premises must have been allowed
to depreciate and get worse over a period of time."
The judge did not make a hygiene
prohibition order against Choudary or his company as it would have a seriously
adverse effect on the bulk of his business.
"It could have had a seriously
adverse effect on the charitable work that you do, which includes the provision
of soup kitchens in the Billing area of Northampton." he said.
A spokesperson for Pizza Hut said:
"We take food hygiene and health and safety extremely seriously and we
have already taken measures to address this situation.
2. Pizza Hut has stuck by its HR department, after it
was fined for the hiring illegal workers in two of its restaurants.
The
huge Pizza chain was caught employing illegal workers at their Reading and
Hounslow and fined £5,000 for each incident.
Figures
from the UK Border Agency (UKBA) reveal that Pizza Hut is not alone, with
1,161 firms being fined nearly £10 million over the last 16 months as a result
of recruiting a total of 2,058 illegal workers.
A
spokesperson for Pizza Hut defended the firm:
“This
particular incident took place almost a year ago at one of our franchised
stores. We have since ensured that all our franchisees have reviewed their
processes, in order to prevent this happening again.” Source: HR Review
Assess the extent to which the
benefits of complying with legislation outweigh the costs to a business like
Pizza Hut and its franchisees. [12]
