• Revealed: The damning evidence that that led to landmark prosecution
  • Victim Paul Wilson's parents say 
  • Campaigners say the case should serve as a seminal moment for all allergy-sufferers

York Press:

WHEN detectives arrived at a semi-detached house in the North Yorkshire village of Helperby late on a cold January night, little did they expect the case would create policing and legal history.

They found Paul Wilson, a manager of the pub next door, had died alone in the property and found him slumped over a toilet.

But Mr Wilson had left a trail of clues that would eventually - after a unique and complex investigation involving witnesses from across the country and close collaboration with trading standards and crown prosecutors - lead to a restaurant owner being charged with killing him.

York Press: ALLERGIC: Paul Wilson, who died following a severe allergic reaction to peanuts from a meal from Indian Garden, Easingwold.Picture by Tom Yeoman.

Paul Wilson

Allergy Action founder Hazel Gowland said the case was "huge breakthrough" for the one-in-50 people in the country with a food allergy.

She added: "It is shocking that it has taken this long for someone to be prosecuted over an allergy-related death, but this time police managed to get all their ducks in a row.

"I am hoping this investigation will be a template for all future police inquiries of this sort." 

After finding Mr Wilson, the detectives spotted a menu from the Indian Garden, in Easingwold, on the 38-year-old father's kitchen table, alongside a barely-eaten curry together with a takeaway box, clearly marked with the words "no nuts".

Crucially, unlike other previous investigations which were dropped before they reached court, they seized the curry. The meal was later sent for forensic examination by leading food analyst Dr Duncan Campbell, who found the meal contained a high level of peanut.

Within an hour of Mr Wilson being found officers were at the restaurant and, significantly, seized his order chit, which had "no nuts" written on it and CCTV from inside the restaurant showing Mr Wilson buying the curry. They also found of the four staff working at the restaurant, only the kitchen porter had a legal right to work in the UK.

York Press:

The next morning, police alerted trading standards, who led a forensic examination of the restaurant's kitchen, while detectives were told by the restaurant's staff that Mr Wilson had asked for "no coconut".

Detective Sergeant Andy Palmer, part of a five-officer investigation team, said: "We then had the meal tested for coconut and it was found it contained lots of coconut as well."

A post-mortem examination concluded Mr Wilson had died as a result of consuming just 500 micrograms of peanut, two thousand times less than the weight of a paperclip.

Detectives then turned their attention to finding a motive for why peanuts had replaced almonds in the curry. They found the restaurant's owner, Mohammed Zaman, who had six restaurants in Easingwold and York, and a business debt of £294,000.

They concluded this led him to reduce staff costs by employing illegal immigrants, forge a safety certificate and make no investment in staff training. Working closely with trading standards officers, detectives also found another of his customers, a teenage girl, had suffered an allergic reaction to a curry just 27 days before and had been warned by food safety inspectors.

When detectives spoke to a number of Zaman's suppliers, they found he had also been given warnings about the use of groundnut mix.

Det Sgt Palmer said: "Zaman was on both general notice from his supplier and on particular notice from trading standards over the earlier incident. His actions in using groundnut mix were exposing his customers with an allergy to an obvious and fatal risk."

Investigating officers found no food allergy-related deaths had been prosecuted, leading them to seek advice from the complex case unit of the Crown Prosecution Service.

Martin Goldman, chief prosecutor for Yorkshire, said it was immediately apparent the case was both unique and challenging.

He said a public policy decision had been taken to try to establish a criminal duty of care between the restaurant and the consumer to the standard necessary for a charge of gross negligence manslaughter. 

York Press:

Paul Wilson's parents Keith and Margaret

To do this prosecutors found they would have to prove the actions of the individual were foreseeable, that there was a direct relationship between the supplier and the user and that it was fair and just to take the actions of people operating in "normal" society and classify that behaviour as criminal.

He said: "Gross negligence in crime terms means it's got to be more than merely bad behaviour and practice.

"There are an awful lot of people out there with allergies, so it was extremely important for them that we established this principle. What we had to do was go back to basics and build a case with police and trading standards."

As well as providing their food safety expertise for the case, trading standards officers ramped up their monitoring of restaurants across North Yorkshire, increasing test purchases for allergens from about two annually to 50.

Trading standards officer Andy Robson said through 2014 officers found a five per cent failure rate.

He added: "The last year has been more positive because there has been some new regulations brought in, unfortunately for Mr Wilson, they came in December 2014, and now there is more positive requirement of business owners to display allergens information to the consumer.

"Swapping cheaper ingredients for more expensive ones is starting to decline. It's starting to decline because people such as ourselves are being more proactive as a result of this case."

York Press:

Just minutes before he died, Paul Wilson, was chatting on the phone to his mother, Margaret, looking forward to eating a meal he loved.

"I've got a chicken tikka masala and onion bhaji takeaway", he told her, "I've got my clothes ready for work tomorrow, so after I've eaten that I'm going to get an early night."

A few hours later the 38-year-old father, a tall, slim man with a healthy complexion and jovial nature, was found dead, slumped over the toilet in his home, next door to an inn he managed in Helperby, near Easingwold.

York Press:

News that he had died devastated his family and rocked the close-knit community he had settled in.

Those that knew him were all the more shocked to learn he had fallen victim to his peanut allergy, after eating a chicken tikka masala - long cited as one of the country's most popular dishes - as he had scrupulously avoided even the briefest encounter with nuts, wearing gloves to offer customers packets of peanuts from a box.

Mr Wilson, a talented amateur golfer with a two handicap who once beat this year's US Masters champion Danny Willett, was diagnosed aged seven with a severe nut allergy, after biting into a Marathon bar.

"Paul's nut allergy had always played a very important role in his life and he carried his epi-pen", Mrs Wilson said.

"From then on we never had any nuts, Christmas time or anything. Fortunately, he loved apple pies, so I would bake them for him. It only became an issue if we were out and he decided upon a change and they couldn't be clear whether something contained nuts.

"He only had a couple of incidents. I remember being at a cousin's wedding and Paul was given a pencil-thin piece of cake with no marzipan, no nuts. But there was obviously something, and he was violently sick and we went home."

His father, Keith, described his son's approach to his allergy as "meticulous", particularly after he started working as a chef.

"Paul cooked for John Major once," Mr Wilson proudly recalls. "He was very careful with food, so it must have been very severe the night he died. It would only have taken a mouthful of that curry for Paul to know that there was something wrong.

"When he had his own business he never had anything on the bar. Even if he could smell nuts an allergic reaction could be triggered."

The pub manager was one of an estimated 250,000 people in Britain with a severe nut allergy.

York Press:

Mr Wilson's death came just weeks after North Yorkshire teenager Ruby Scott suffered a severe reaction after tasting a curry from Jaipur Spice restaurant in Easingwold and months after 31-year-old landscape gardener and nut allergy sufferer Derek Stephenson, of Stanhope, County Durham suffered a fatal reaction to a supposedly "no nuts" curry from a takeaway.

Detective Inspector Shaun Page, the senior investigating officer in Mr Wilson's case, said he had been astonished by the prevalence of allergen deaths and life-threatening incidents that occur throughout the UK on a regular basis, and the devastating impact of such incidents on people's lives.

"Recent figures suggest that half a million people up to the age of 44 have a peanut allergy and it is likely that half of these cases are severe", said Det Insp Page. "The increase in peanut allergy has been extraordinary. Research shows a 117.3 per cent increase in the prevalence of peanut allergy from 2001 to 2005."

Campaign group Allergy Action believes about one in 50 Britons are affected, and many with the allergy manage it by avoiding certain types of business.

Its founder, Hazel Gowland, said Paul Wilson's case would startle many with the condition, as he had bought food from what was perceived to be a high-end restaurant.

She said she feared the food labelling legislation brought in to protect allergy sufferers months after Mr Wilson's death, would fail to stop serious food allergy incidents.

Mr Wilson's mother, Margaret, said she was optimistic the prosecution of Mohammed Zaman over her son's death would serve as a sharp warning to food suppliers.

"Nothing can bring Paul back", she said, "but it is our sincere hope that his death will raise awareness in the food industry, so that this never happens again. We also ask anyone with a food allergy to always be aware.

"Paul was very caring. We were a loving family and it's hard."