A shop kitchen where hot dog sausages were found gnawed by rats was blighted by one of the worst smells ever experienced by an environmental health officer, a court heard.

The stench which turned the stomach of Jonathan Stokes when he visited Budgens on Premier Parade in Fairfield, Stockton, a shop which served hot sausages in buns, after a complaint about rodent activity from an abandoned fridge in a nearby car park. Teesside Magistrates’ Court was told the officer opened the door to a back kitchen, the premises’ only high-risk area for food safety on September 8 last year.

“Mr Stokes was immediately hit by an extremely foul and very intense smell emanating from that small room,” said Joan Smith, prosecuting for Stockton Council today (December 12). “A smell that he says made him feel sick and described by him as being one of the worst he’d encountered in his 15 years’ experience.”

The Northern Echo: Teesside Magistrates' CourtTeesside Magistrates' Court (Image: LDR)

The overpowering ammonia-like odour – linked by lawyers to either a rat infestation or faulty drains – was still there a week later. Ms Smith added: “The smell alone should have alerted staff to an issue that would have been plainly obvious to anyone going into that kitchen area.

“It appears they either simply ignored or disregarded it and continued to prepare food in that kitchen for the hot box area. There were flies present in that kitchen.

“There were clear identified rodent droppings. There were rodent smears.

“There was stock that had been clearly attacked by rodents. He found that two packages had been gnawed and damaged by rodents. He was extremely concerned that there were similar products on sale on the shop floor and being heated.”

When she offered to produce the small box of pre-cooked hot dogs in court, defence solicitor Sarah Clover said: “I take grave exception to the exhibit being present. It’s a biohazard. The idea of bringing foodstuffs to court after more than a year is rank.”

Ms Smith clarified only the box was in court, not the smoked sausages themselves. She argued Samy Ltd, the company which ran the shop, had shown a “flagrant disregard for the law” and taken no action on a kitchen area which should have been given care and attention to ensure customers’ health and safety and stop rodents getting in. The kitchen was closed for more than a fortnight as the issues were resolved.

The Northern Echo: Budgens on Premier Parade, StocktonBudgens on Premier Parade, Stockton (Image: LDR)

The company, of Corporation Road, central Middlesbrough, reported as having a £25.9m turnover in 2022, pleaded guilty to three food hygiene offences.

In its defence, Ms Clover said managing director Mohan Samy was contrite, did everything possible to cooperate and spared no expense dealing with the problem. She said: “This is a hugely regrettable episode. He’s deeply concerned for the public, for the service that he offers.

“Mr Samy has 33 stores. The whole estate has a five-star rating. To have slipped below that is a matter of deep concern and regret to him.”

But she said the risk was “exceedingly low” as the rodent-nibbled hot dogs never came close to being eaten by customers and the smoked meat was shrink-wrapped beneath other boxes, with “absolutely no contact or contamination with the bottom box”.

Ms Clover said: “There is no possibility whatsoever that the contaminated sausages, the chewed sausages, would ever have made it to the public-facing area of the store. It would have been noticed. It would have been impossible to pick up that box without seeing that it had been interfered with.”

She said the source of the rodents was a failed drain, as Mr Samy discovered with a £20,000 survey: “The rats were making their way into the store through the waterway. They were attracted by the foodstuffs. They weren’t coming in because of any dirt.

“It wasn’t immediately obvious that there was something wrong with the drains. Nobody realised this was the point of access for the rats. It took some time for anybody to realise it.”

Most read:

Start December with Your Community at Heart!  Grab our digital subscription for just £3 for 3 months and stay connected with local happenings. Click here.

She added it was a recent problem, “tiny numbers” of fresh droppings were behind a fridge and under a sink, and a metal plate covering a hole in the wall had slipped. She said procedures were in place but a manager detected no smell in the room a week earlier.

The company found no explanation why issues were not picked up. But Ms Clover said: “In this current post-Covid era, there are many reasons why many people have different capacities when it comes to senses of smell.

District Judge Marie Mallon adjourned sentencing until February 6 next year.