Soup poisoning probe at top public school
A kitchen porter from Northamptonshire has been arrested on suspicion of attempting to poison more than 600 pupils at one of Britain's top public schools.
The 58-year-old man from Brackley was arrested on suspicion of tipping a household cleaning product into a batch of carrot and coriander soup cooked for pupils at Stowe School.
At a specially arranged press conference yesterday morning Dr Anthony Wallersteiner, headteacher of the 27,000-a-year school near Silverstone, said the soup was found to be poisoned after kitchen staff tasted it for flavour.
He said the soup had been cooked for an "ordinary" dinner for boarding pupils last Thursday night.
The following day a kitchen porter, who has worked at the school since January 2007, was arrested on suspicion of administering poison with intent to endanger life or inflict grievous bodily harm.
Dr Wallersteiner said: "This was a batch of soup that was being prepared for the evening meal. Before any meal is taken up from the kitchen to be consumed the food is tested and it was during the routine sampling that one of the duty chefs found there was something acrid coming from the soup."
He said the chef immediately spat out the soup, which could have been eaten by up to 650 boarding pupils.
Dr Wallersteiner said it is believed a "household cleaning product that would be used in any domestic kitchen" had been used. He denied some reports that diesel had been tipped into the soup.
He said parents had been "shocked and disappointed" when he told them.
However, Dr Wallersteiner said he had looked through past medical records and spoken to the school's medical centre and found no evidence that anyone had been treated for the effects of food poisoning.
He added: "This is clearly a serious - but isolated - allegation of food being tampered with.
"As a result of the testing procedures we have in place within the kitchen, it was detected early and an investigation was undertaken immediately. I would like to reassure parents that no pupil or member of staff was affected in the incident and, given the rigour of the procedures, neither the pupils nor staff were put at any risk."
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Friday 10 February 2012
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