Company boss jailed with non-organic egg on his face
12 March 2010 09:49
A company boss was jailed for three years yesterday for his part in a scam which saw tens of millions of eggs falsely passed off as free range.
The near two-year fraud also led to eggs wrongly labelled as organic being sold to consumers in supermarkets and other stores across the country, Worcester Crown Court heard.
Jailing Keith Owen, who admitted three charges under the Theft Act in relation to the fraud, Judge Toby Hooper QC said the defendant had abused the "well-intentioned" trust of the public.
The judge also ordered Mr Owen to pay £250,000 in costs and to settle a £3 million confiscation order within 12 months, or face a further six-and-a-half years in prison.
The court heard that Mr Owen was a middleman who sold battery and "industrial" eggs imported from France and Ireland to other suppliers, who were variously told that they were British, free range, organic or even that they met the RSPCA's Freedom Food welfare standards.
Defra investigators estimate that Mr Owen, who was buying the caged eggs at around 35p per dozen and selling them on for up to 90p per dozen, may have wrongly passed off around 100 million eggs.
Passing sentence, the judge said Mr Owen's business, Heart of England Eggs Unlimited, had made very substantial profits at the expense of "real-life victims" who mistakenly believed they were buying free-range eggs.
Describing Mr Owen as the guiding mind of the firm, the judge told the managing director: "Imprisonment there must be, because the offences are plainly so serious that only a sentence of imprisonment will suffice.
"This was all a carefully-planned and executed fraud by false accounting. By greed, you have corrupted and destroyed the once-legitimate business which you have known all your life".
The British Retail Consortium (BRC) described the fraud as an exceptional situation, which had coincided with a shortage in free range eggs supplies.
BRC spokesman Krishan Rama said: "Customers should be reassured this fraud was spotted.
"Suppliers of eggs are routinely checked by independent assessors to ensure legal standards are being met. Most of the eggs sold in the UK come from a few main suppliers, which makes it straightforward to monitor the industry".
The National Farmers' Union poultry board chairman Charles Bourns said the confiscation order and sentence handed down by the court sent out a strong message that such activity would not be tolerated.
"The vast majority of people working within the egg industry are hard-working and honest. Thankfully, cases like this are few and far between".
He added: "Following the allegations, the British Lion scheme has strengthened its code of practice to ensure its traceability is robust, with on-farm stamping, a new database to track eggs throughout the system and unannounced audits.
"I am sure that egg producers will help report any wrongdoing and above all protect the integrity of the British egg industry.
"Consumers can be reassured that, with new procedures in place, the eggs they are buying are genuine. The Lion mark helps ensure the highest standards of traceability and labelling".
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