A fastfood boss who showed a “flagrant disregard” for food hygiene rules despite repeated environmental health visits and advice has been banned from running a similar business again.

Bradford Crown Court judge John Potter told 46-year-old Swami Sharma, who had pleaded guilty to 20 food hygiene offences at Bradford and Keighley Magistrates’ Court, that the ban was appropriate.

Sharma, from Ridgeway, Dalton, Huddersfield, was also given 200 hours of unpaid work attached to a 12-month community order and told to pay a victim surcharge. No costs were awarded to cover the Council’s investigation.

Sharma had been running Grill Hut in Little Horton Lane for a friend at the time of three food hygiene inspections between August and October in 2012, the court heard.

The offences included not registering the food business with the Council, failing to keep the premises clean and in good repair, not keeping work surfaces disinfected, not having a washhand basin in the kitchen and not having hand drying facilities in the toilet.

Other offences included food handlers not wearing protective clothing, staff not being given adequate food hygiene training, the premises not having and maintaining a food safety management system and failing to protect food containers from contamination - take-away boxes were stacked on the floor .

Paul Fleming, in Sharma’s defence, said his client had left his family in Scotland to come to Bradford and run the business in his name for a friend.

The inspections had come about after a customer complained to environmental health about the food from Grill Hut having an odd smell.

Sentencing Sharma, Judge Potter said: “You displayed a flagrant disregard of food safety regulations against a background of previous visits by the Council and advice being offered.”

Sharma is no longer working with food. After the sentencing Bradford Council’s Executive Member for Environment Councillor Andrew Thornton, said: “If food business owners put the health of their customers at risk by operating from unhygienic premises then it is right that they end up in court, and in this case the Crown Court. We provide lots of advice and guidance for food businesses on how to achieve and maintain the required standards. If they fail to follow our advice and continue to flout food hygiene regulations then we will not hesitate to use the law to protect the public.”