Whilst all groups of people can run filthy catering establishments, the Muslim community seems to produce more than its fair share of eating places that are so bad that you would baulk at feeding from such a place to a dog. Julia M, over at Orphans of Liberty has a very interesting case where the Judge in a food safety case has displayed a refreshing level of cynicism to mitigation from the lawyer representing the Muslim owner of this filth pit.

Judge Janet Waddicor, sitting at Lewes Crown Court was hearing the case of Muharrem Kartal, 52 who had pleaded guilty to 41 charges of breaching food safety laws at his GFC kebab shop situated in Church Road, Hove. As is usual in these cases, the Mohammedan defendant tried to wriggle out of his responsibility despite pleading guilty and his punishment. He claimed that ‘nobody had been in any danger’ despite the Judge saying that that the breaches of the food safety laws were serious and that two people suffered food poisoning after eating food from the shop.

Kartal, via his lawyer tried to play the ‘I’m a carer’ and the ‘I can’t speak much English’ cards, but the Judge appeared wary of accepting Kartal’s claim that he was a poor, skint carer and ordered Kartal to be remanded on bail whilst his claims were checked. This move by the judge is probably a good one as in far too many cases excuses made by defendants and mitigation via lawyers is too readily accepted as truth.

It is to be hoped that Judge Waddicor does send this filthy caterer down for a term in prison as the establishment he ran was truly disgusting. Here’s an excerpt from Julia’s piece to show just how bad this filth pit really was.

Julia said:

Two dead rats underneath a cupboard under the stairs.

• The floor in the servery was covered in thick black deposits of grease, chips, cardboard and food debris, with stalactites of fat dripping from cooking equipment

• A worn salad chopping board used for cutting up raw chicken and so badly worn it was not capable of being cleaned

• No soap at the sink in the basement preparation room and no supply of hot running water to wash hand basin

After reading the description of how bad this place was it makes me even less inclined than I normally would be to eat in one of these back street Islamic establishments.

What is interesting about this case is that aspects of it may point to things being not all right and proper with the way that Brighton and Hove council may be dealing with their food safety scoring system for catering places. According to Julia’s report, the GFC kebab house was displaying a sign on its door saying that it had got a three out of five score for food safety. However they seemed to be displaying his despite there being a few concerns raised about the food handling practises at GFC kebabs. It makes me wonder if officers of Brighton and Hove council may be either be less than diligent when examining takeaways or even worse that they may be less than honest and may be giving higher scores for a ‘consideration’. The matter of how Brighton and Hove score takeaways for food safety may need to be looked into as something seems not quite right here.

What’s also interesting about the defendant is that he doesn’t appear to be some innocent who has got a few things wrong. He’s been in trouble before for taking a ‘devil may care’ attitude to British law. The court was told that he’d been done before for being a slum landlord.

Julia added:

The court heard the lease on GFC had since been repossessed, as well as the two residential properties above he rented out.

The properties he crammed with tenants over the permitted licence amount netted him £139,000 a year, paid in cash. He was fined £45,000 last year, the largest fine to date, for breaching housing regulations.

So we can see that this man is not exactly one of life’s law abiding citizens. Kartal cared nothing for the laws regarding tenant density and flagrantly breached food safety laws that could have resulted in someone dying from an infected kebab. Maybe my dwindling number of friends on the political Left could enlighten me about how a slum landlord, who still claims he can’t speak English, and who ran a kebab house that was little more than a factory for Salmonella infection, enriches our society? This is because from where I am sitting it looks as if Kartal and those like him are not only of little practical use to us, but in Kartal’s case could have been extremely dangerous to anyone who was foolish enough to eat out of his potentially lethal kebab shop.

Links

Julia M’s piece over at Orphans of Liberty

http://www.4liberty.org.uk/2018/06/22/judge-waddicor-is-no-fool-which-is-refreshing/

Earlier report from the Brighton Argus on the closure of the GFC Kebab house in Hove which was ordered by Magistrates

http://www.theargus.co.uk/news/16171852.Magistrate_orders_kebab_house_to_close_over_rat_charges/