A famous South-west hotel has been heavily fined after environmental health inspectors found kitchens in a filthy state.

Jamaica Inn on Bodmin Moor in Cornwall pleaded guilty before Bodmin magistrates to breaches of the health and safety legislation.

The owners of the hotel Five Star Taverns were fined £7,000 with £2,900 costs.

The court was told that health inspectors were shocked when on a visit they found grills and cooking surfaces encrusted with food debris and mould.

An inspector told the court the risk of contamination was high, that cleanliness and hygiene standards were poor overall and that there was no documented food safety management system. Staff training was also found to be inadequate.

In mitigation it was said that hygiene standards at the hotel had now been upgraded in line with environmental health inspectors recommendations.

After the case a spokesman for North Cornwall  council said : "Where  serious breaches  of food safety law are found  which  put the public  at risk  and when previous advice  given by the department is ignored  we will not hesitate  to act in the pubic interest and take formal action."

Built in 1750, Jamaica Inn was originally a coaching inn  and then became a hideaway for smugglers because of its remote location. 

It was made famous by Daphne Du Maurier's book of the same name.

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By Andrew Smith

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