Deep fried cockroach in bag of chips leads to £1,000 fine

Asif Javaid, the 43-year-old owner of Cod Plus in Brighton, has been fined £1,000 and ordered to pay a total of £2,600 after accidentally serving a deep fried cockroach in a portion of chips.

Magistrates heard that a customer had bought a bag of chips to eat on the bus home. According to the Argus, the prosecutor said: "As she got to the bottom of the bag she found what she thought was a bone. Then she noticed it had legs. Then she realised it was what she thought was a cockroach."

She put the evidence in a bag and informed environmental health officers. Yahoo reported that when they followed up her complaint they found a filthy, rat-infested takeaway shop. They also found a container filled with brown liquid that smelled of sewage. They warned the owner, but on a second visit they found more fresh rat droppings, and they took the owner to court.

Magistrates found Javaid, who lives above the shop, guilty of hygiene failures. According to the Argus he has been subjected to abuse after the cockroach discovery was first reported, and now plans to sell the shop.

Cockroach discoveries
It must be a horrible shock to discover a rogue cockroach in your dinner. However, this customer was far from the first.

This time last year we reported on the Leeds pizzeria which had been fined £2,000 after a customer found a cockroach baked into the crust of a pizza. When inspectors arrived they found the bugs in pans, in the chiller and running up the wall. They shut it down to be cleaned.

In January the same year, the Hummingbird Restaurant in Stroud Green Road in Finsbury Park was closed down to be cleaned after inspectors found a cockroach infestation in the kitchen. They were called after a customer found one in his chicken roti.

Last year McDonalds Australia was fined $8,000, after its Rockingham, Perth, branch served a customer an iced coffee with a cockroach stuck to the inside.

But one of the most horrible tales is from 2009. That February, Chester's Chicken and Pizza, on Coy Nook in Blackburn was fined £27,000 after an inspection found 126 cockroaches in the kitchen - including two dead ones stuck to the door seal of the fridge.%VIRTUAL-SkimlinksPromo%

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