Nut allergy girl ‘joked’ before fatal reaction

THE mother of a teenage girl with a nut allergy who died after eating an Indian takeaway yesterday told a court how she had been laughing and joking with her just 15 minutes before she began to struggle for breath.

Megan Lee, 15, had a fatal asthma attack after eating food from the Royal Spice Takeaway in Oswaldtwistle, Lancs, in December 2016.

Her online order through the Just Eat website had the words “nuts, prawns” in the comments and notes section but staff allegedly paid no attention and served a meal that tests later showed contained peanut protein. Gemma Lee, her mother, yesterday told Manchester Crown Court her daughter went from joking and chatting to struggling to breathe at their family home within 15 minutes.

An hour earlier, she had collected Gemma from a friend’s house where she had shared the takeaway meal.

In a statement read to the court, Mrs Lee said: “On the way home Megan seemed fine, extremely chatty and telling me what she had bought from shopping, joking about having the reaction.”

At home, the fatal attack began and her mother saw her daughter was struggling to breathe and that her lips were swollen and blue. “Megan was panicking. I didn’t know if the struggling to breathe was a panic attack.”

An ambulance was called, but she died in hospital two days later after she suffered irreversible brain damage.

Jurors were told her death was an “altogether too predictable consequence” of the conduct of two bosses accused of her manslaughter by gross negligence.

Mohammed Abdul Kuddus, 40, of Blackburn, and Harun Rashid, 38, of Haslingden, deny manslaughter.

Kuddus has admitted a health and safety at work charge and contravening EU food safety regulations, which Mr Rashid denies. The trial continues.