We seem to have reached an impasse. The Food Standards Agency has clear views about creating a new food safety offence aimed at tackling meat crime. It claims that amending the Food Safety Act is not possible because of EU regulations and that there is no political will, or need, to create a new offence under primary legislation because of the existence of the conspiracy to defraud charge, used in the Amber Valley and Rotherham cases. As for increasing penalties under food safety law, again there is no need because the courts are failing to use the tariffs available to them. In short, all will be well if we do nothing.

This is not a view shared by EHPs who are tackling meat crime on the front line. Nor was it the view of the Waste Food Task Force, set up to investigate what action should be taken to prevent a repeat of Amber Valley and Rotherham. Nor is it the view of Lacors, the CIEH, barristers who try to prosecute food crimes in the courts, police officers, or the delegates at last year's meat crime conference held by the CIEH in Cardiff. The view of this lobby group is that the Food Safety Act carries too low penalties to act as a deterrent for serious meat crimes and was never designed to be used for such offences. The act was designed to punish the incompetent or hapless, someone who poisons a wedding party, not serious criminals deliberately recycling hundreds of tonnes of unfit food into the food chain.

Scotland Yard's intelligence unit is telling us that the same criminals involved in drug and people smuggling are involved in food smuggling. Just a few years ago, EHPs in Liverpool found £1m worth of cocaine under unfit food in a lock up. We know that in the Amber Valley case at least one of the ring leaders had been attracted away from drug crime into meat crime because of high profits and low penalties. We also know that meat criminals convicted under the Food Safety Act are out plying their trade almost immediately after their court cases. In fact, some have been seen doing deals by mobile phone during their trials. The existing penalties are clearly not acting as a deterrent to the career criminal and while the FSA has taken action to shore up loopholes in the food supply chain after Amber Valley, it is naive to think that where such large profits can be made, criminals will not find ways around controls.

As for the FSA view that conspiracy is an adequate charge for large-scale food crime, again, the consensus view is that it is not. It requires police resources that may not be available. It also requires proving intent and conspiracy. A far more complex prosecution case and a far easier charge to defend than one of strict liability.

The landscape is changing and will continue to change as long as our criminal system fails to deter career criminals away from food crimes. At the very least, the FSA should be investigating the viability and need for another offence, given the number of people calling for change. As our story reveals, let us hope it does not take the death of innocent people before it is realised how dangerous these food crimes really are.

Stuart Spear
Editor