Christmas Day arrest for city trader

A Hove trader spent Christmas Day in a police cell after failing to appear at court to answer food hygiene charges.

Imaad Khan, owner of Amber Foods in Western Road repeatedly ignored warnings from council food safety officers who visited the store several times last year.

Failure to appear in court on December 23 to answer 26 food hygiene and two food labelling charges resulted in a warrant being issued and Khan being arrested in Christmas Day.

Khan eventually appeared at Brighton Magistrates Court today (January 4) and pleaded guilty to all the offences. He was fined £2,450 and ordered to pay £2,000 costs.

Len Batten, prosecuting on behalf of Brighton & Hove City Council, told the court that food safety officers had made numerous visits to Amber Foods and each time found that food safety laws were clearly being flouted.

Offences included lack of hot water for washing hands and cleaning, displaying food past its ‘use by’ date, inadequate pest control procedures, poor lighting and structure, rotting food and staff smoking and not washing their hands.

The chiller cabinet was dirty, leaking water and not cold enough and there were no proper arrangements for disposing of trade waste.

Khan was given four weeks to carry out improvements, but failed to make any changes.

The court also heard that Khan had previously been fined for illegal disposal of waste and obstructing the pavement.

Councillor Geoffrey Theobald, Cabinet Member for Environment said: ‘’I was saddened to hear that this case ended in court action but this trader has consistently flouted the law putting his customers at risk.

“Over a period of six months officers found a catalogue of problems including poor standards of hygiene, a lack of hot water for cleaning and hand washing, out of date food, lack of necessary management controls, broken food chillers and no proper arrangements for collection of trade refuse.

“The City Council’s Food Safety team dedicate a lot of time and resources to helping small businesses to comply with food law to ensure they are as safe as possible. Unfortunately in this case their advice was ignored and they had no option other than to take it to court.’’