UK: Two jailed for horsemeat conspiracy
01 Aug 2017 --- Yesterday, two men started a term behind bars in the UK for conspiring to pass off horsemeat as beef, as part of the wide-reaching food fraud scandal that rocked the industry and consumer confidence in 2013.
Andronicos Sideras, owner of Dinos and Sons Ltd. and Ulrich Nielsen of Flexi Foods were sentenced to four years and six months and three years and six months imprisonment respectively, at Inner London Crown Court.
Their sentencing relates to the defrauding of consumers by conspiring to label approximately 30 tons of horsemeat as beef products for their own profits.
A third man, Alex Ostler-Beech, also of Flexi Foods was given an eighteen month suspended sentence.
The judge in the sentencing hearing, Owen Davies QC, told the court how the plot was not just confined to Britain or the companies the three men worked for. He spoke about the far-reaching meat adulteration issue.
Sideras was convicted during an earlier trial after he had pleaded not guilty of conspiring to defraud customers by adding the horsemeat to batches of beef and adding labels claiming the products to be pure beef.
“It’s difficult to recall now the conditions that made this horsemeat scandal headline news every day five years ago, but it made an impact on the public in general.”
“They were suspicious of the food that they had – it extended far beyond meat.”
Judge Davies QU spoke about how huge the scandal was and how it impacted the supply chain and consumers in general.
“The confidence in the food chain was affected adversely, and the share prices of big supermarkets were affected, and it is difficult to recreate the feeling of anxiety that the public had at the time this all emerged,” he said.
“It was not an activity that was brought to an end by anything other than the arrest of the perpetrators.”
“The victims in question, properly so-called, of conspiracy to defraud were customers, either wholesalers or the customers of the markets and supermarkets who bought an item that was not what it said it was.”
The prison sentencing of the two men sends out a clear signal that food crime will not be tolerated, according to the Food Standards Agency (FSA).
It says how the two men’s crime was discovered after an environmental health officer visited a meat manufacturer in Newry, Northern Ireland. The FSA led the investigation before passing the responsibility to the City of London police in 2013.
“The sentencing today is the result of an immense effort by individuals in a multi-agency investigation and, as well as the police, I’d like to highlight the key role played by local authorities in securing the conviction. The sentences should act as a deterrent to those who think they can profit from committing food fraud,” says Heather Hancock, Chairman of the FSA.
The news comes as a new food scandal affecting the egg industry engulfs the Dutch market.
