E.coli abbatoir was Britain's worst

Mar 18 2008 by Rhodri Evans, South Wales Echo

THE abattoir which supplied E.coli butcher William Tudor received the lowest-ever hygiene score in Britain – but politicians allowed it to continue trading.

The E.coli public inquiry heard yesterday there was a catalogue of serious hygiene breaches – including faecal contamination of meat – at JE Tudor & Son’s abattoir, in Treorchy, dating back at least 13 years before the deadly outbreak.

And a senior meat hygiene adviser, who recommended that the slaughterhouse should have been closed down in 1994, said the owners – Billy and Jonathan Tudor, the E.coli butcher’s uncle and cousin – had told officials they were going to do “bugger all” to improve conditions at the plant, which was built in 1860.

But despite these problems, including the business receiving the lowest-ever hygiene assessment score in Britain of just 11 out of 100, the then Secretary of State for Wales John Redwood decided not to revoke the licence in 1994.

David Thomas said that political pressure during the 1990s meant the licensing system was “compromised” to help abattoirs stay in business.

A decade later – a year before the E.coli O157 outbreak which killed five-year-old schoolboy Mason Jones – JE Tudor & Son, run by Jonathan Tudor, was still operating.

Its hygiene assessment score had increased, but there were similar serious problems with the structure of the building and poor hygiene and cleaning standards.

Paint and rust were flaking from the roof of the building and cleaning would be left for a week after slaughtering.

Mr Thomas told the inquiry he believed there was a policy in place in the 1990s, which allowed under-performing slaughterhouses to be licensed even if they didn’t meet the requirements of the law, providing it was thought that they could comply at some point in the future.

The message came from both the Ministry for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food policy-makers and from the Welsh Office, he said.

When asked by the inquiry’s senior counsel, James Eadie, whether this was a “total abuse of the legislative position”, Mr Thomas said: “I wasn’t happy, nor were my colleagues in England and Scotland. We knew what the standards were and, in my opinion, we were asked to compromise.

“In the case of Tudor’s establishment, if I reported back that there was a possibility of this plant complying, then it makes it more difficult to try to revoke a licence later in the future because the politicians who were pulling the strings at that time would look at the report and say give Tudor every chance to try to comply.”

He added the policy of the time was: “We were told to give them every chance to stay in business and find solutions to do that. It is not a situation that I’m proud of. If it was up to me I would have shut a lot more down.”

A series of inspections between 1992 and 1994 found serious hygiene problems. But despite these, JE Tudor & Son – which was slaughtering 700 cattle, 1,000 sheep and 1,500 pigs a year – was initially awarded a temporary licence by the Secretary of State for Wales, 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.

By 2005, JE Tudor & Son was operating one and a half days a week – Tuesdays and Thursdays – killing four cattle, up to 30 pigs and 70 sheep a week.

Mr Thomas said that in 2005: “It was my opinion that the establishment could not be approved in its current condition unless a substantial amount of work was undertaken and some of the operational practices improved.”

It was not until almost a year later that Jonathan Tudor decided to voluntarily cease trading when it became apparent “that the amount of investment required to bring the establishment into a condition whereby it could be considered for approval could not be justified economically”, Mr Thomas said.

n The inquiry will continue hearing about the Meat Hygiene Service’s inspections of JE Tudor & Son today.

madeleine.brindley@mediawales.co.uk