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Tesco Blackmail Trial: Farmer Convicted of Spiking Baby Food
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Tesco blackmail trial: farmer convicted of spiking baby food [theguardian.com]:
A sheep farmer is facing a “lengthy custodial sentence” after being convicted of planting baby food laced with metal shards in stores as part of a long-running blackmail plot against Tesco.
Nigel Wright, 45, deliberately contaminated jars of Heinz baby food and sent dozens of letters and emails to the supermarket giant in an attempt to extort £1.4m in bitcoin in a two-year campaign.
One draft letter read: “Imagine a baby’s mouth cut open and blood pouring out, or the inside of their bellies cut and bleeding. You pay, you save them.”
Nigel Wright sent dozens of letters and emails to Tesco. Photograph: Hertfordshire constabulary/PA
Claiming to be part of a cohort of farmers angry at the low price of milk, he warned jars would also be contaminated with salmonella, white powder and knives.
Tesco was forced to issue a product recall of 42,000 jars after contaminated products were found in two stores in Lockerbie and Rochdale.
Morven Smith, in Lockerbie, had already fed a few spoonfuls of Heinz sweet and sour chicken to her 10-month-old baby when she spotted “something shiny” in the bowl and pulled it out in December 2019. She said: “It was horrendous. I felt sick, I was so shocked.”
Wright was caught on CCTV placing a tampered jar on a Tesco shelf, before buying a bottle of wine, more jars of baby food and flowers for his wife, a primary school teacher.
A second mother, Harpreet Kaur-Singh, in Rochdale, later told Tesco she had binned two jars of baby food – Heinz Sunday chicken dinner and a jar of cheesy pasta stars – after discovering metal while feeding her nine-month-old daughter.
The case led to the largest blackmail investigation conducted in the UK, involving at various points more than 100 officers. When Wright was tracked to his family home outside Market Rasen, Lincolnshire, police found photographs of contaminated baby food on his laptop, with the same flavour as the Rochdale jars.
Giving evidence, Wright, who used the fictional names of “Guy Brush” and “The Dairy Pirates” in his threats, admitted planting one jar in Lockerbie, but denied tampering with stock in Rochdale.
He claimed he had been forced into it by travellers who had threatened to rape his wife and hang his children “from the trees”.
But the prosecutor, Julian Christopher QC, told him: “The truth is you were not in fear at all. You were carrying on your life normally while hoping to make yourself rich by threatening Tesco in this way while endangering the life of others in the process.”
Mr Justice Warby will pass sentence on 28 September and asked for psychiatric reports on Wright to be prepared, warning him he faced a “lengthy custodial sentence.”
Bill Jephson, the assistant chief constable who led the investigation on behalf of Hertfordshire constabulary, described it as the “most serious and most challenging” product contamination case ever dealt with in the UK”. He said there was “very significant” concern over whether there were more contaminated jars, but added he is confident everything that needed to be removed from the shelves was removed.
Lucy Thomson, the deputy senior investigating officer, said Wright had “significant knowledge and understanding” of the internet, which he put to negative purposes.
“But in terms of his motivation, he’s the only person who will ever truly know why he did what he did and put so many people at risk, including his family, and their livelihood.”
