A SHAMBLES Market fishmonger has been banned from running any food business indefinitely after York magistrates heard of his years of poor hygiene.

Trevor Douglas has never achieved more than two stars on the doors since 2013, the court heard.

The 64-year-old told magistrates he gave up running Whitby Seafish in Shambles Market, York, from Saturday last week because he couldn’t handle the stress.

He claimed City of York Council officers “had it in for him”.

He was speaking after pleading guilty to a series of bad hygiene offences for the second time in two years.

City of York Council’s latest prosecution of him came after he failed to put in force measures to prevent food being contaminated on the stall, among other bad hygiene matters.

The latest stars on the door rating of the stall is one, awarded last November, the court was told. The ratings, from zero to five, reflect how well a business meets food hygiene laws, with 'zero' indicating 'urgent improvement necessary' and 'five' meaning 'very good'.

Victoria Waudby, prosecuting, said between 2013 and 2018, the stall was inspected several times.

“During that time, he has failed to achieve higher than two (stars on the doors),” she said.

Douglas, of St Peter’s Court, Whitby, pleaded guilty to not protecting food adequately from contamination.

He also admitted not providing proper cleaning and disinfection facilities, not implementing a policy to ensure good hygiene practice and failure to provide proper hand washing facilities, all committed on November 6, 2018.

He told the magistrates he was now jobless and penniless.

“From Saturday I have packed it in, because I am stressed out with everything,” he said.

“I am going to get benefits, something I have never done in my life since 1970.”

The magistrates fined him £300 and ordered him to pay £200 prosecution costs and a £30 statutory surcharge.

Because they were his second set of offences, magistrates made a food hygiene prevention order.

The order bans him indefinitely from running or managing on behalf of someone else any kind of food business.

In January 2018, he was fined for four other food hygiene offences at the same stall.

Mrs Waudby said the council ordered Douglas in November 2018 to stop selling ready-to-eat food as well as raw fish at the stall because he wasn’t taking precautions to prevent the raw fish contaminating the ready-to-eat food.

They also served him with enforcement notices to clean up his act in other ways.

He hadn’t complied with the notices by August 2019, the court was told.

The stall as it is today.

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