THE owners of a Bradford shop have been ordered to pay £3,000 in fines and costs after admitting selling rotten, damaged and incorrectly labelled fruit.

Mohammad Haleem, 36, and Mohammed Rahim, 34, of Spencer Foods, Spencer Road, admitted ten breaches of EU marketing standards for fresh horticultural produce when they appeared at Bradford and Keighley Magistrates' Court.

Investigators from the Horticultural Marketing Inspectorate (HMI) found rotten apricots, bruised apples, and grapes that had been affected by soiling and also incorrectly labelled. There were also cherries, lychees, peaches, oranges, onions and spinach being displayed without the required country of origin label.

Haleem and Rahim were each fined £1,200. They were also ordered to pay costs of £360 and a victim surcharge of £240.

Paul Caldwell, operations director at the Rural Payments Agency (RPA), said: "This case highlights just part of the work RPA undertakes to protect consumers.

"Fresh produce should be good quality and labelled accurately, and the HMI work is very important in ensuring these standards are met.

"Prosecution is a last resort and we always try to gain compliance with quality and labelling regulations through advice, guidance and instruction.

"In this particular case, the prosecution followed a series of visits over 16 months. Between August 2012 and November 2013, the store failed ten successive visits from inspectors where advice and guidance was offered, but inspections found persistent poor quality and inadequate labelling."

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