JUST eight days after being banned from managing food businesses because of hygiene offences, a man was found back running his Leamington restaurant.
Mohammed Muneer claimed he was there to give the chef a lift home – but further checks on Ali’s Curry House showed he was still involved in running it.
The 64-year-old of Denbeigh Street, Bordesley Green, Birmingham, has been jailed after pleading guilty at Warwick Crown Court to contravening a prohibition order.
Judge Sarah Buckingham jailed him for 18 weeks for that offence – consecutive to six weeks of a suspended sentence he was subject to at the time for the earlier food hygiene offences.
William Douglas-Jones, prosecuting on behalf of Warwick District Council said in 2015 Muneer was convicted of two charges of breaking food hygiene regulations at the restaurant in Bath Street and was fined £4,000.
Last January he was given a 23-week suspended prison sentence for six further hygiene offences after council officers found mouldy food, access to a hand washing sink was partly blocked and surfaces and equipment which came into contact with food were dirty.
Along with the suspended sentence he was banned from managing a food business.
But eight days later a food safety officers went to check on Ali’s Curry House and found Muneer alone in the restaurant with the chef.
He claimed he was giving the chef a lift and went to get the man he claimed was the manager, but when the man arrived he was unable to answer questions about the business.
Leaflets with the restaurants new name – Dama Dam Mast Balti – also had Muneer’s number on them.
Food safety officers also spotted him working there in February in March.
And Muneer then failed to sign the lease over to the new manager’s name, as he had given the impression he would do.
Chloe Ashley defending said there would be a knock on effect for Muneer’s wife if he were jailed as she would not be able to meet mortgage repayments.
But Judge Buckingham said the breaches of the prohibition order and the suspended sentence made it too serious for anything other than an immediate sentence,
She added: “It is a flagrant and deliberate breach of a court order.”
