Takeaway fined over curry meat scam

Rana Fiaz, owner of B Medina take away in Brighouse, appeared before Calderdale Magistrates’ last week and was fined £265, as well as being ordered to pay prosecution costs of £2,066 for breaching the he Food Safety Act 1990. He must also pay a £27 victim surcharge.

David Lodge, of Trading Standards, said, “Consumers rightly expect to get what they pay for. This takeaway substituted beef for lamb without informing the customer.”

In July last year Trading Standards officers ordered a lamb korma from the takeaway on Lightcliffe Road and after sending it for testing, the meal was discovered to actually consist of beef, not lamb.

During interview, Rana took full responsibility for the business, which he had run for over 16 years, however said he was not in the country at the time the order was made. He said that when a customer orders a lamb curry and they don’t have any lamb to supply, the workers are supposed to tell the customers, however that did not happen in this case. The receipts supplied at the time of the interview showed that the meat purchased for use in the curry was beef. However the receipts supplied were not original and had been produced after the offence had been committed. No evidence was supplied to show due diligence, nor the recent purchase of lamb for use in curries.