E.coli meat supplied by the ‘UK’s worst slaughterhouse’

Mar 20 2008 by Claire Rees, Rhymney Valley Express

THE slaughterhouse which supplied E.coli butcher William Tudor had the worst hygiene record in Britain.

A public inquiry has heard the shocking history of JE Tudor and Son’s abattoir in Treorchy and found a catalogue of serious health breaches, including faecal contaminated meat, dating back at least 13 years before the outbreak.

The inquiry in Cardiff is looking into the outbreak in the South Wales Valleys in 2005 which killed Deri five-year-old Mason Jones.

This week the focus turned to the abattoir which was given the lowest ever hygiene score in Britain (11 out of 100), yet was allowed by politicians to continue trading.

The owners, Billy and Jonathan Tudor, are the Bridgend butcher’s uncle and cousin.

A senior meat hygiene adviser, who recommended the slaughterhouse should have been closed down in 1994, said they told officials they were going to do “bugger all” to improve conditions at the plant, which was built in 1860. But, despite these problems, the then Secretary of State for Wales, John Redwood, decided not to revoke the licence in 1994.

Though the hygiene assessment score had improved a year before the outbreak, there were serious problems including paint and rust flaking from the roof and cleaning being left for a week after slaughtering.

A series of inspections between 1992 and 1994 found serious hygiene problems, but JE Tudor and Son – which was slaughtering 700 cattle, 1,000 sheep and 1,500 pigs a year – was awarded a temporary licence by the Secretary of State to allow him to “put his house in order”.

Even though no improvements were made, he was eventually granted a permanent licence by the Welsh Secretary in the face of recommendations that the business be shut down.

In the year of the outbreak that affected more than 150 people, including mainly children, JE Tudor and Son was operating one-and-a-half days a week, killing four cattle, up to 30 pigs and 70 sheep.

It has also emerged a young boy from the Rhymney area was prescribed painkillers by a GP who was not aware school children were falling ill at the height of the outbreak.

The boy, referred to only as case six, who was a pupil at Upper Rhymney Primary School, suffered kidney failure and was transferred to a specialist children’s hospital in England after falling ill two days after the outbreak was declared.

He tested positive for E.coli O157 the following day and underwent dialysis, losing two stone during his illness.