A LEADING Scottish cheesemaker whose business was caught up in an E.coli outbreak has won a reprieve in his fight to keep the firm going.
Humphrey Errington has won a battle to prevent around £20,000 worth of stock destroyed after lawyers from Food Standards Scotland (FSS) declined to contest his legal action at the Court of Session.
However, he is still waiting to find out if he can push ahead with a full judicial review into the FSS investigation of his Dunsyre Blue cheese, which it claims lay behind the outbreak that affected 22 people and led to the death of a three-year-old girl this summer.
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In the meantime he is still prevented from making new cheese and barred from selling his existing stock.
Mr Errington previously said that unless the court rules in his favour his Lanarkshire firm Errington Cheese is "finished".
Following the latest twist in his legal battle, he said: "The government lawyers backed off and agreed we could keep the cheese, which is tantamount to an admission that they had made a mistake ordering it to be destroyed.
"It is good news, but not that good as we are still not allowed to sell or make any more cheese. We remain completely shut down."
Mr Errington pioneered the making of small batch artisanal Scottish cheeses in the 1980s and 90s, and employed 13 people at his family-run firm.
However, he said he has now had to let all of his staff go as there was no way to pay their wages.
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He said: "It is a terrible thing, because we have had to pay them all off and some of them had worked here all their lives.
"I kept them on for a couple of months but there was no way to pay their wages so I had to let them go. We're completely closed down now."
He is seeking a judicial review to establish if FSS actions were lawful or not. As well as preventing the manufacture and distribution of Dunsyre Blue, FSS also banned banned sales of four other brands of cheese sold by Mr Errington's company: Dunsyre Baby, Lanark Blue, Lanark White, Maisie's Kebbuck and Cora Linn. Customers who had bought the cheeses were asked to return them.
The court action is seeking details of tests carried out by the agency which linked the cheese to the outbreak, after the firm's own tests were unable to find the bacteria.
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FSS deny this, saying all all results from samples were shared with Errington and insist the decision take to recall Errington Cheese Ltd products are "evidence-based and informed by interpretation from experts including legally designated food examiners".
FSS also intends to take further action to clamp down on any manufacturer using unpasteurised "raw" milk and has issued a letter to all local authorities requiring them to apply new and stringent tests on the presumption that any cheese made this way is unsafe.
The order applies to hundreds of cheesemakers, including some famous brands, and has led to some claiming they are being made subject to regulations far more severe than other food producers.
The E.coli bacteria is generally passed on through contamination with animal fecal matter and has been responsible for a number of deaths in Scotland because through consumption of contaminated goods.
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