THE owners of a Chester restaurant found to be infested with cockroaches have been fined thousands of pounds.

Environmental health officers immediately shut Barton Rouge on Steam Mill Street down on July 25, 2018 after cockroaches scuttled over their feet during an unannounced inspection.

One year on to the day, the company responsible for Barton Rouge, Chester Foods Limited, was fined £8,000 at Chester Magistrates Court.

Entering guilty pleas on behalf of the company was director Mohammed Kashem Ali Tahid, of Brooklands Road, Sale, Manchester, who was fined £800, while also in the dock was 50 per cent shareholder Mohammed Aamir Latif, of Arbor Drive, Manchester, who was fined £665.

The two men – 50-50 partners in the firm – and the company entered guilty pleas at the first opportunity to five breaches of hygiene orders, with Ashfaq Chowdhury, defending, saying the restaurant had turned itself around since the inspection and now had a five-star Food Standards Agency rating.

Prosecuting on behalf of Cheshire West and Chester Council, Ian Moore presented magistrates with a thick dossier of photographic evidence showing the state of the restaurant during the inspection.

He said the business had a few weeks prior been taken over by Chester Foods Limited over previous owners A&S Enterprise.

Mr Moore said the new owners kept the same staff on and kept things running as they had previously.

When health officers made the unannounced visit, they found the state of the kitchen, preparation room and store rooms were dirty, with a build-up of grease and food debris found in the kitchen and containers of chicken and prawns on surfaces above 8C.

As one of the officers entered a dry store room, a German cockroach ran across the floor.

Further searches revealed there were a number of dead and nymph cockroaches in the premises.

A chef was asked whether they knew about the cockroach infestation, to which they replied they had put down 'medicine' – a poppadom with a white crystalline substance on it – boric acid.

Officers then asked staff to pull the fridge in the preparation room, where a large number of cockroaches emerged and ran over the feet of staff members and the health officers.

More cockroaches were found underneath piles of onions.

There was also no hazard regulation guideline documentation found.

At that point two men arrived saying they were the managers of the business. They were told of the risk to the public and the place was closed, with all customers at the restaurant told to leave immediately.

The officers were shown a report from Rentokil, a pest control firm which had been hired each month, with the last report showing a clean bill of health on June 28, 2018, with no cockroach activity.

Officers revisited Barton Rouge the following day to find an extensive clean-up operation and were later advised the restaurant owners had changed their pest control firm to Pestaway Northwest Ltd, a company which they said had a more aggressive approach to pest control.

In August, officers returned to find the place reopened and told the managers they should not have reopened the restaurant without their permission, but an inspection showed the overall standards were acceptable with no evidence of cockroach activity, and the venue was allowed to stay open.

The following month, Barton Rouge received a four-star rating from the Food Standards Agency, with the owners keen to get the rating back to five stars.

Defending, Mr Chowdhury said both men were of previous good character.

Tahid was an experienced restaurateur with over 20 years experience, while Latif was a trainee accountant who was there as a bookkeeper for the business.

In the weeks following the takeover, Tahid's son was very ill and Tahid was having to dash between the restaurant and the hospital, and this meant "his eye was off the ball".

Latif had no hands-on restaurant experience and was an investor; Mr Chowdhury added he was in court "as a technicality".

It was believed the cockroach infestation had originated from a wholesale stock of onions.

After the restaurant was closed, all the staff helped give a deep clean, while an ex-environmental health officer had been taken on as a consultant to make sure all staff knew hygiene procedures.

Mr Chowdhury said: "I visited this restaurant in preparation for this case, it certainly looked like a professional, well-run premises, it's clear everything was as you would expect and they allowed me to check at the back."

Previous news reports about the restaurant's closure had had a "devastating" impact on the business, with turnover half of what was expected, and the restaurant had been losing money over the past year, leaving Tahid with a number of debts as he had put his life savings into the business.

But the restaurant now had a five-star Food Standards Agency rating – the highest score attainable – earned in March 2019.

Mr Chowdhury added: "They are aware the matter will be reported in the press and hope the people will be fair and see it now has a clean bill of health."

Chair of magistrates Jeffrey Langham told the defendants: "We are appalled at the state of this photographic evidence of the infestation and the poor state of the equipment.

"We believe that in Tahid's case, and with 20+ years' experience, it should be blatantly obvious in the first instance that these premises did not come close to the required standards of food hygiene.

"Consequently, we can only accept your personal mitigation.

"For Latif, given your personal investment, you should have taken all the necessary personal actions to ensure it should have complied with the law."

In addition to the fines, Chester Food Limited must pay £700 prosecution costs and a £170 victim surcharge.

Tahid and Latif must each pay £682.50 prosecution costs, with Tahid paying an £80 victim surcharge and Latif a £66 victim surcharge.