Restaurant Owner Jailed For Manslaughter

[agchristie]

How will this ruling affect the food industry? Any AB'ers have a nut allergy and do you look at all packaging?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-36360111

[Buenchico]

I can't see why it should 'affect the food industry' at all. The EU Food Information for Consumers Regulation No. 1169/2011 already requires restaurants and takeaways to declare the presence of allergens in foods that they serve (and has done so since 14/12/14). As with all laws, there will always be some people who're prepared to risk flouting the legislation.

[Prudie]

i think the only effect it might have is make restaurant owners be honest with their descriptions and not cut corners. From what I heard on the radio this guy claimed food was peanut free when he knew perfectly well it wasn't and even after a warning he still blatantly continued to lie. Tragically this one man truly had a severe allergy. There's no point checking packaging and menus if you can't trust those that wrote them.

[Jackdaw33]

Just as an aside, the report states that he switched almond powder for a cheaper product containing peanuts. As almonds are nuts I wondered what is special about peanuts to cause this allergy.

[jackthehat]

Mrs JtH has a nut allergy and stopped buying takeaway meals years ago precisely because it is difficult to make sure that the importance of the meal being completely 'nut-free' has been understood...

And, yes, we have to scrutinise ALL packaging to make sure the contents aren't going to kill her.....:o)

[DTCwordfan]

Good - he deserved it as he practised deception if not fraud.

[anneasquith]

A tragic outcome. But, I think if I had such a severe allergy I wouldn't trust any takeaway restaurant to cook my food .

[Svejk]

I must say, and I'm in no way defending the restaurant owner, that if I had a food allergy, the last thing I'd be eating is a curry. (unless I made it myself)

[Peter Pedant]

this restaurant owner had a few goes at killing people

he had been warned once ( and denied it )
and the day after the index death,
he was still selling nut-free food with erm nuts in it ...

[hc4361]

jackthehat, peanuts are not nuts. They are a legume the same as peas, true nuts grow on trees.

[jackthehat]

Erm.....I know.....
I used to have a couple of peanut plants when I was a child. :o)

But narrowing down the 'trigger-nuts' by inducing possible anaphylactic shocks is probably not the ideal way to go about determining these things.

[ToraToraTora]

the guy was negligent sure and Manslaughter seems about right after reading up on the case but if I had an allergy that was that bad I could die, there is no way I'd be ordering food from any sort of takeaway or restaurant. I know some of these peanut allergies are so severe in some it's like cyanide in effect.

[237SJ]

The guy wasn`t negligent - he willfully substituted ground nuts for ground almonds. He deserves what he got.

[mikey4444]

I was watching this on the News this morning, while waiting for my haircut.

I appreciate that I wasn't present when the court case was on, but the verdict, does strike me as a tad draconian, and might be overturned on Appeal.

[Jackdaw33]

The verdict is not draconian; the sentence might be.

[wiltsman]

Mikey, I agree with many of the comments you make - but not this time I'm afraid.

[mikey4444]

Yes Wiltsman...I have researched the case and I am tending to agree with you. I think that the chap was guilty.

But this has made case law and I wouldn't be surprised if it was altered on Appeal.

[mikey4444]

Jack....yes, I think you are right at 19:24.

[douglas9401]

Sometimes I think that folk are addicted to the clatter of the keyboard.

[roopower]

Jackdaw, peanuts are not really nuts, they're legumes and belong to the pea family. There are other 'nuts' which aren't real nuts either, but I can't remember what they are. I've had several children with peanut allergies in schools I've worked in over the years and they usually steer clear of all nuts, just to be on the safe side. One child was hospitalised when he touched a computer keyboard after his cousin who had been eating salted peanuts. Scary!

[Old_Geezer]

Deliberately taking unnecessarily action that risked and actually killed someone; six years seems rather light to me. Could hardly claim it was just misfortune.