Legal points In this feature due diligence food safety In this feature: due diligence responsibility The blame game In January, Mitchells & Butlers Plc was fined a record 1.5m for causing a fatal food poisoning outbreak on Christmas Day in 2012. Andrew CampbellTiech QC and Richard Heller examine the trials defence of due diligence O n Christmas Day 2012, the Railway Hotel in Hornchurch, London, gave lunch to 128 guests. Within 12 hours, at least a quarter of those are known to have fallen ill although the true number is likely to be much higher1 and one woman in her mid-forties died. These bare and distressing facts were, two years later, to give rise to a close examination of the elasticity of the defence of due diligence. Staff at the Railway Hotel included a respected manageress and an experienced head chef. On Boxing Day, these two with the assistance of others embarked upon a cover up of the provenance and handling of the turkey served the day before. Mitchells & Butlers, a large and profitable UK food and beverage company, owned the Railway and sister establishments in the vicinity. Over a number of years, the company had developed and refined a comprehensive food safety policy. This included the provision of training, onsite inspections and the dissemination of hefty safety manuals. Further ad hoc direction was provided by the companys internal newsletter, emailed to each of its outlets, including the Railway. From the companys point of view, their investment in food safety served two purposes: the first was to reduce the incidence of food poisoning and related risks; the second was to provide it with a defence of due diligence, given such an event. Clostridium perfringens is a nasty bug. Occasionally fatal, it is in its toxic form particularly associated with ill-prepared and undercooked poultry, including turkey. The Railways kitchen was neither big enough nor sufficiently wellequipped to serve 130 Christmas lunches without substantial TAP TO NAVIGATE PAGES 1 2 3 4 5 6 Credits Published You might also like Andrew Campbell-Tiech QC and Richard Tuesday 24 February, 2015 Covering your back February 2015 Heller practise from Dyers Chambers. Images: Tomacco / Shutterstock To share this page, click on in the toolbar "