Farmer accused of spiking jars of Heinz baby food in Tesco blackmail plot
A MUM told a court how she almost fed her baby metal shards that had been planted in a jar of baby food.
Harpreet Kaur-Singh spotted the contamination after tipping the food into a bowl for her nine-month-old girl.
Farmer Nigel Wright, 45, is accused of spiking the jar as part of a plot to extort £1.4million in bitcoin from Tesco.
He wrote to the supermarket giant claiming he had planted contaminated goods in dozens of stores and offered to reveal where they were in exchange for the money, the Old Bailey heard.
Mrs Kaur-Singh of Rochdale, Greater Manchester, told how she saw “metal chippings” in a Heinz Sunday chicken dinner last year.
She threw it out but later found more in a jar of Heinz pasta stars. She told
Wright denies spiking jar the hearing: “I showed it to my husband and he said, ‘It’s metal chippings’, so I binned it.” She later heard of a recall for Heinz baby food after slivers of a craft knife blade were found in a jar in Lockerbie, Scotland. Wright from Market Rasen, Lincs, is said to have marked the underside with a crossedthrough circle. Mrs Kaur-Singh said she noticed no such mark. A total of 42,000 jars of Heinz baby food were recovered.
Further letters to Tesco from Wright relating to Cow & Gate baby food resulted in 140,000 units withdrawn.
Wright denies three counts of blackmail and contaminating the baby food found in the Rochdale branch of Tesco.
He claims he was forced by travellers to put the contaminated jar on the shelf in Lockerbie. The trial continues.