A TAKEAWAY owner has been fined more than £1,600 after a rat ran over the foot of a food hygiene inspector.

Ali Izadi, who ran Pizza Planet in Market Street, Wotton-under-Edge, pleaded guilty to four charges of breaching food safety regulations at Cheltenham Magistrates’ Court on Monday, July 22.

The shop was closed down for two weeks and given a zero food hygiene rating after rats and filthy conditions were found by Stroud District Council’s food inspectors in September last year.

Inspectors visited after receiving a complaint. They found rat droppings and poor pest proofing, the wash hand basin was unusable and the kitchen was dirty and cluttered.

Improvement notices were served but, at a subsequent visit in November, a large brown rat ran across the floor and over the inspector’s feet.

Izadi was also found to be selling alcohol without a licence when officers conducted a test purchase.

Izadi was still listed as the owner of Pizza Planet in May this year but it is not clear whether he is still involved with the business currently. The Gazette attempted to contact Pizza Planet for clarification but there was no response.

The takeaway now has a hygiene rating of one-out-of-five after inspections in March and May this year.

A report following March's inspection said there was ‘little confidence’ in the management due to the unfit food found on the premises and a lack of documentation.

Food was found in open, rusty tins in fridges. Temperature checks for fridges, which should be completed daily, had not been done since December 2018.

The inspection also found there was not appropriate hand washing facilities.

The report stated: “Given that mouldy and unfit food were found it is clear the food safety management system is not being implemented.

A re-visit in May revealed similar issues to the March inspection. Discoloured bacon and foul-smelling burger and tuna were found in the fridge, with the food storage area described as ‘overfilled and messy’.

The premises was said to require a ‘thorough deep clean’, while there was also a crack in the main kitchen floor that required repair.

The report also revealed that there was no system in place for correctly communicating allergens to customers.

Izadi was fined a total of £640 and ordered to pay the council £1,000 in costs together with a victim surcharge of £32.

Jon Beckett, head of health and wellbeing at the council, said: “Food inspectors always act quickly to ensure that poor standards of food hygiene are dealt with and most businesses respond well. However, it is occasionally necessary to take legal action to deal with the worst cases.

“It is often claimed that poor food hygiene ratings are simply down to a lack of paperwork. Nothing could be further from the truth. Poor ratings are generally an indication of serious food hygiene failures that could lead to illness.

"We would urge all consumers to take note of the food hygiene ratings displayed on green window stickers in premises or on the food hygiene rating website food.gov.uk/ratings."