#wishaw

Today marks 25 years since Wishaw was hit by the world's worst outbreak of E.Coli.

The first deaths from E-coli outbreak in Lanarkshire happened on November 27th 1996. Scores of people, young and old, fell ill after eating products from John Barr butchers in Wishaw - still the world's worst outbreak.

The butcher confessed he had barely even heard of the bug before the tragedy.The report said there was inadequate training of staff at Barr's shop in Caledonian Road, implicated in the outbreak.

It identified five key failures:

Failure to use temperature probes for cooking raw meat 

Failure to draw up cleaning schedules to reduce the risk of contamination at the premises

Failure to separate completely within the premises processes relating to raw meat and cooked meat

Failure to provide separate knives and equipment for each of the separate processes 

Failure to provide clear management structures and "adequate supervision" to enforce safety measures

The deaths of the 21 people in the food poisoning outbreak twenty five years ago clearly devastated many families who mourned the loss of, in some cases, both grand-parents. 

In August 1998  butcher John Barr was in disgrace after a sheriff ruled that his ''deliberate deception'' of environmental health officers may have caused every death from E-coli in the world's worst-ever outbreak.  In a strongly-worded condemnation of Mr Barr's work practices at his shop in Wishaw, the sheriff principal, Mr Graham Cox, leading the inquiry, said the deaths of six people could have been prevented. The report concluded that if Mr Barr had responded "fully and honestly" with Environmental Health officers, by admitting he supplied meat to Scotmid supermarkets, six deaths could have been avoided.

He eventually received a derisory £5000 fine.