Five jailed in meat fraud case

Darren Bibby (L) and Andrew Boid were found guilty of fraud

Five men who passed off hundreds of tonnes of condemned meat as fit for human consumption have been jailed for a total of 26 years and nine months.

In the multi-million pound fraud, the men repackaged pet food-grade poultry and sold it on to supermarkets and food outlets across Britain, a jury at Hull Crown Court heard.

Peter Tantram cleaned up the meat and sold it on

The jury found Andrew Boid, 33, of Carlton, Nottinghamshire, Darren Bibby, 29, of Oldcotes, Nottinghamshire, and Peter Tantram, 47, of Ingham, Lincolnshire, guilty of conspiracy to defraud businesses by selling poultry not fit for human consumption.

Boid was jailed for seven years, Tantram for six, and Bibby for three.

Boid and Tantram were also found guilty of conspiracy to sell pet food grade meat which was falsely represented as human food quality.

They were both sentenced to 12 months to run consecutively.

Arnold Smith, 63, of Sheffield, and John McGinty, 48, of Woodsetts, near Rotherham, South Yorkshire, had already pleaded guilty to fraud before the trial began in September.

Smith was jailed for three years and nine months, and McGinty for five years.

Rotting meat

Containers of smelly, badly-bruised poultry, covered in faecal matter, flies and feathers, were found by officials investigating the case.

The jury heard that the fraud operated between 1993 and 1996 and earned millions of pounds.

Poultry was covered in faecal matter, flies and feathers

Boid and Bibby were bosses at Newark-based company Wells By-Products Ltd, which was responsible for processing poultry meat for pet food.

Its main customers were pet food giants Spillers and Pedigree.

Wells bought in huge quantities of condemned birds which were packaged as pet food and invoiced to a Lincoln-based company called Cliff Top Pet Foods, the court heard.

Cliff Top - which was run by Tantram - cleaned up the meat before it was passed on to McGinty.

He then helped change the product's identity from pet food and it was moved on again to food brokers.

The scam was uncovered when environmental health officers launched an undercover surveillance operation on a company in South Yorkshire.

Further scam fears

Large quantities of salt, used to remove slime from the meat and freshen up its appearance, were discovered in addition to the smelly poultry.

Seized invoice books showed butcher shops, supermarkets and restaurants across the UK were being supplied.

Judge Peter Heppel QC said the "cynical and greedy" fraud could have had catastrophic consequences for public health.

Consignments of meat were likely to be bought by less "affluent members of society", he said.

"Indeed one consignment was served at an old people's home in South Yorkshire," the judge added.

Government health officials have sought to play down public fears, saying the scam appeared to be an isolated incident.

But the reassurance, which came from the Food Standards Agency, contradicts Rotherham environmental health officer Lewis Coates, who led his authority's investigation into the fraud.

He said there was evidence that similar scams were operating across Britain and called for a full inquiry into the extent of the problem.