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Simon Drust, owner of the butcher’s shop The Meat shack, in Studley, Warwickshire, has been jailed for more than two years after he admitted to mislabelling meat.
‘Best of British’
Drust, aged 51, pleaded guilty to fraud and fraudulent trading at Warwick Crown Court on 25 April, after being accused of generating £1 million selling imported meat he’d labeled as ‘Best of British’.
He was ordered to pay £54,527 in costs, and the butcher’s shop was fined £300,000. A total sum of £127,690 from the defendant bank account(s) was confiscated following the Proceeds of Crime Act.
The Daily Mail state Trading Standards ‘became suspicious’ after a customer found a ‘Dutch label underneath a Best of British stamp’ after they’d purchased meat from The Meat Shack.
‘Tricking people’
According to the Daily Mail, Deputy Judge Richard Griffith-Jones told the defendant: “You intended to make gains for yourself and consequent losses to others by fraud.
“You did it by tricking people into engaging in transactions by pretending that the meat they were to buy was of British origin and had a good animal welfare background.”
The judge also noted that ‘legitimate businesses’ who also advertise the same products as The Meat Shack would ‘lose out’.
