Farmer jailed over baby food blackmail

A SHEEP farmer who laced baby food with metal shards was yesterday compared to a terrorist as a judge jailed him for 14 years over the “blood-curdling” plot.

Nigel Wright, 45, deliberately contaminated jars of Heinz baby food in Tesco stores as part of a conspiracy to extort cryptocurrency worth £1.4 million from the supermarket.

His plan, executed between May 2018 and February this year, nearly had horrifying consequences when two separate mothers almost fed the spiked food to their infants. The lethal contaminants consisted of the shattered blades of a craft knife and iron filings.

Wright sent dozens of letters and emails to Tesco, saying he would reveal where the contaminated food had been placed if it met his demands.

It triggered the largest blackmail investigation ever conducted in the UK which at points involved more than 100 officers deployed across the country, working day and night shifts.

He was arrested at his family home outside Market Rasen, Lincs, in February and convicted of two counts of contaminating goods and three counts of blackmail following a trial at the Old Bailey in August.

He was convicted of a further charge of blackmail for using an anonymous letter to demand £150,000 worth of bitcoin from a driver with whom he had had a road rage altercation.

Yesterday, Mr Justice Warby compared Wright’s actions to terrorism as he passed sentence, telling the defendant: “Here, the fear that you relied on when you blackmailed Tesco was that babies would be caused serious injury by eating food contaminated with sharp pieces of metal.”

He continued: “You chose to use threats of a particularly blood-curdling nature, deliberately designed to exploit the vulnerability of children, and the consequent vulnerability of a supermarket concerned for its business.”

He jailed Wright for 11 years for the plot against Tesco, with a further three years for the anonymous letter sent to the driver, whom he threatened to execute with a rifle before murdering his wife and children.

In all, 42,000 jars of Heinz baby food were recalled, with the total costs to Tesco £2.7 million.