Sentences Determined for First Prosecutions in U.K. “Horsemeat Scandal”

According to a Crown Prosecution Service press release, Peter Boddy
and David Moss have been sentenced in the first prosecutions stemming
from the “horsemeat scandal” of 2013. Moss, the slaughterhouse
manager, was convicted of falsifying an invoice during a U.K. Food
Standards Agency investigation and received a four-month suspended
prison sentence. Slaughterhouse owner Boddy was fined ₤8,000 for
failing to keep adequate records that could trace the origin of the meat,
and each defendant must also pay costs of ₤10,442 within six months.
“This deception is serious—the absence of proper records means that it
is not possible to identify whether the horsemeat may have entered the
human food chain,” the prosecutor said. “It also means that if there was a
problem with the horsemeat it would not be possible to recall it.”

Issue 560