The owner of a squalid fried chicken shop found to contain a dead rat, cockroaches and furniture coated with hair shed by vermin has been fined.
Food inspectors also found nymphs – insects that are not yet fully formed – as well as cockroach shells and evidence of rats throughout the property in Whitechapel.
Tower Hamlets council said cockroaches were found to be “running along the floor, walls, food containers and in cupboards” at the ironically named Fab Fried Chicken.
Skirting boards were found to have been knawed by vermin and furniture was “smothered with rat hair”, the council said.
Abdul Basit, 51, of Woodyates Road, Lewisham, was fined £2,000 after admitting five hygiene breaches at Thames Magistrates Court on November 5.
Tower Hamlets council’s cabinet member for the environment, Ayas Miah, said: “The council take breaches of food safety very seriously, especially when they are extreme cases such as this.
“We remind all food retailers of the importance of hygiene, and will take enforcement action when retailers are in breach of the law.”
