Spirit Group takes bashing over dead mouse

Managed operator Spirit, recently bought by Punch, has been slated by environmental health officers for a catalogue of health and safety breaches - including decomposing rodents.

Environmental Health News​, the trade mag for health inspectors, says the name Spirit was a byword for grime in their industry.

The report says Spirit averaged almost one prosecution every month last year.

The most shocking of which is the story of Spirit customer Brian Macintosh who discovered a decomposing mouse​ sharing the children's ball pool with his three-year-old daughter at the Toy Soldier in Preston.

A horrified Mr Macintosh told his local Environmental Health Officer (EHO) who reportedly found a litany of problems at the premises.

Spirit was recently fined £22,000 for seven health and safety breaches at the site. They are definitely worse than other pub chains​Warrington EHO Nicola Gannon

According to Environmental Health News the pub chain was fined a total of £50,800 for various breahes relating to unsafe and unhygenic pubs.

Already this year there has been one prosecution other than the Preston case and Spirit has been forced to pay a total of £64,000 in 2006.

Warrington EHO Nicola Gannon said she had had many dealings with the firm and in her experience she believed they were falling behind the rest of the industry.

She said: "They are definitely worse than other pub chains. A lot of times we don't get a response so have to go ahead with legal proceedings.​

"Then they ring you up the day or even the morning before the hearing to agree the conditions."​.

The Spirit Group responded by denying it has a poor health and safety and food hygiene record. We have introduced a number of measures to ensure that these breaches don't happen again.​Spirit Group spokesman

A Spirit spokesman pointed out some of the court cases were from incidents which occured before the company took ownership of the pubs.

She told the Morning Advertiser:

"The healthy and safety of our teams and customers is of the utmost importance to us and we strive to ensure all standards are not just met, but exceeded in all of our pubs. ​

"Spirit Group has a very good health and safety record and invests heavily in the training and development of our teams. ​

"We also conduct regular audits and site visits to monitor standards. ​

"We have good relationships with health and safety officers across the UK and are always willing to take advice to continually improve our already stringent procedures and policies. ​

"A number of incidents, which recently concluded in court, relate to offences that occurred prior to Spirit Group owning the pubs in question. ​

Following the acquisition of Scottish & Newcastle Retail, we conducted our own investigations into these health & safety breaches and have introduced a number of measures to ensure that they don't happen again."​

The Spirit Group was acquired by Punch Taverns before Christmas in a billion pound deal.

It is now a managed division of the new company.

The deal makes Punch the biggest pub chain in Britain, with over 9,500 pubs nationwide.

Punch is expected to convert many Spirit pubs to tenant franchises.

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