Lara Owen
Warning: This article includes graphic content
What’s meant for your pet’s bowl should never end up on your dinner plate.
But terrifyingly in what is shaping up to be one of the UK's biggest food scandals, two men have been jailed after investigators discovered rotting meat, whole chickens and even lambs’ testicles being pushed into the human food chain, despite it being officially classed as 'not fit for human consumption'.
When Trading Standards officers swooped on a shop in Walworth, south London, they found meat left festering in the sun and even uncovered a secret back-room cutting shop where workers were skinning and portioning the rancid meat ready to flog to the public.
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At the centre of it all was Anthony Fear, 63, who ran Fears Animal Products Limited. He was supposed to be collecting animal by-products and sending them to a pet food processor.
Instead, he sold them on to Azar Irshad, 40, who ran a halal butchery business - and passed the tainted meat off as safe for people to eat.
Judge Noel Lucas KC said the whole operation was driven by 'sheer greed and arrogance,' calling Fear 'a greedy man' and describing the shop as 'disgustingly filthy.'
Fear has now been jailed for 42 months, while Irshad was sentenced to 35 months and banned from working with food ever again.
Investigators traced 1.9 tonnes of meat back to the scam, all of which had been improperly stored and handled. Two other men involved got suspended sentences, but the court heard the entire racket posed a serious risk to public safety.
Andrew Quinn of the National Food Crime Unit said: “This case demonstrates the serious risk posed when individuals deliberately disregard food safety regulations by putting meat unfit for human consumption back into the food chain.”
For neighbours, the warning signs had been there from the start.
The stench of rotting meat was so bad, residents had complained long before the raids. One councillor later said the men operated with 'complete disregard for public health, motivated solely by greed.'
It’s a chilling reminder that when it comes to food safety, what looks like a bargain could hide something much darker.