Spite drove Hancocks' plot to poison' cider

by ma reporter

The managing director of Aston Manor cider company tried to contaminate Bulmer's production line after losing out on a lucrative Booker's contract, a court has been told.

Michael Hancocks, 63, masterminded a plot to introduce a yeast-based contaminate into bottles of Bulmer's cider, including White Lightning and Strongbow.

He hired two accomplices ­ chemist Richard Gay, 50, to produce the poison, and Paul Harris, 41, his daughter's boyfriend ­ to recruit a Bulmer's factory worker to administer it.

But the plot collapsed when the Bulmer's employee, Russell Jordan, backed out at the last minute and called the police.

Hancocks and Harris have pleaded guilty to conspiracy charges and Gay has admitted possessing the materials to make the poison.

Victor Temple QC, prosecuting, told the court how Hancocks had a "considerable degree of animosity" towards Bulmer's.

"What he had in mind was to steal a commercial advantage on Bulmer's ­ to in effect, teach them a lesson."

Hancocks was managing director of the Aston Manor Brewery in Birmingham, a fierce rival to Bulmer's which has a factory 60 miles away in Hereford.

The animosity between the two firms arose from a dispute over the use of a tax loophole once exploited by some firms in the cider industry.

Known as "duty dilution", cider makers were allowed to reduce their tax bill by reducing the alcohol level in their drinks.

This was a legal loophole which Bulmer's used to cut the costs of its drinks ­ but which infuriated traditionalists within the trade.

Aston Manor kept away from the practice ­ which was outlawed in August 2001 ­ but suffered huge commercial losses as a result.

The rivalry between the two firms came to a head in the summer of 2001 when both bid for a lucrative contract with Booker's Cash and Carry.

Bulmer's walked away with the most profitable part of the contract ­ leaving Aston Manor Brewery on its knees.

Anthony Barker, QC, defending Hancocks, said his client acted out of sheer desperation.

He told the court: "This was a man who had been driven beyond endurance by business activities of other people whose behaviour was less than honourable.

It's a man who was fighting his corner in a way that he felt ­ wrongly ­ was the only thing left to him."

Hancocks approached Paul Harris, his daughter Susan Vaughn's boyfriend, to implement the scheme and act as his middle-man.

The pair then approached Richard Gay, a former chemist at Aston Manor who, the court was told, had been sacked for poor time-keeping and a drink problem, to create the contaminate.

Harris, a hygiene operator at Sun Valley Foods in Hereford, was then left to recruit a Bulmer's employee to administer the poison.

He chose Russell Jordan, who was a member at the local gym he used in Hereford.

Jordan had been working as a temporary forklift truck driver at Bulmer's since March 2001.

Temple explained how the trio decided the weakness in Bulmer's Hereford factory was the "cap's hopper" point of the production line, where the tops are put on bottles.

Gay created the yeast-based bacteria from freeze-dried samples at his home in Tysley, Birmingham.

The contaminate would then be put into plastic "Fruit Shoot" soft drink bottles, which Jordan was supposed to spray into the caps of cider bottles on the production line before they were put onto the full bottles.

The contaminate would cause "snowflakes" in the cider which would cause nausea and diarrhoea.

The first consignment of eight bottles was delivered to Jordan on 26 October 2001.

He was promised £16,000 to complete the job.

But Jordan then realised the seriousness of what he was about to do, and poured the liquid away before burning the bottles.

He told Harris he had carried out the job.

Instead, he spent the £1,000 he was given as an up-front payment and told the police.

Two more consignments were delivered during November and February the following year, both of which Jordan handed over to the police.

Once they had all the evidence they needed, police swooped on 4 April 2002 and arrested Hancocks, Gay and Harris.

During the police operation, Bulmer's hired security men to contain any threat ­ which cost them £154,000.

Hancocks, of Hereford, has pleaded guilty to conspiracy to defraud Bulmer's by introducing a yeast-based contaminant into its products.

It is the Crown's case that his intention was to "cause economic loss" by creating a product recall.

Judge John Foley will sentence Hancocks on 1 May.

Gay, of Tysley, Birmingham, has admitted a charge of possessing articles with the view to causing an offence.

Harris, also of Hereford, pleaded guilty in July last year to a charge of conspiracy to contaminate the products of Bulmer's with intent to cause economic loss.