Schoolgirl finds six inch-long nails in chicken takeaway

Mollie Howe, an 11-year-old from Dagenham in Essex, was about to tuck into a takeaway dinner of chicken and chips, when she was shocked to discover half a dozen inch-long nails in amongst the food. The meal had been purchased from the Red Rooster takeaway in the town, and was eventually discovered to contain six of the nails.

The Daily Mail reported that her mother, 39-year-old Sharon Howe, took the food back to the takeaway to demand action, and said she was just offered more food.

She added that the family regularly used the affordable takeaway, but that they wouldn't do so again because it "isn't worth the risk."

One takeaway worker told the Barking and Dagenham Post that he had no idea how the nails ended up in the food, as they didn't have any of that kind of nail anywhere in the shop.

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Dangerous extras
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Bizarrely, this isn't the first time that nails have been discovered in someone's dinner. In 2008, a bride-to-be from Lincoln accidentally ate a one-inch nail, which was reportedly lurking in a Tesco Value macaroni cheese ready meal. She was rushed to hospital and kept under observation while the nail passed through her system. She eventually discovered there had been three nails in her food.

And these aren't the most alarming sharp objects that people have come across. Last June a razor bade turned up in a Burger King salad in Arizona. The chain said that a staff member had left the blade on a shelf and it had accidentally fallen into a tub of lettuce. It added that razors were not allowed near food preparation areas, and that the employee had been sacked.

Meanwhile, in February 2013, Divans Restaurant in Enfield was fined £2,000 after glass was found in a meal of rice, couscous, chicken and potatoes. The owner admitted he had been changing a lightbulb which had smashed over the food. The council said at the time that it was only luck which stopped this incident ending in tragedy.

That same month a young mother found a bloodied syringe in a loaf she had bought from Tesco. She was making a sandwich for her son at the time, and was shocked when the syringe fell out. It emerged that it had been pushed through the wrapper on the shelf by a drug addict who wanted to hide it from his wife.

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