Disgrunted Bulls dairy farmer ruins $11,000 of milk with penicillin

A farm worker spiked an 18,000 litre vat of milk with penicillin in a bid to get back at his boss.
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Oliver Rhys Hutchinson injected a syringe full of the drug into a milk vat, because he was sour about a work promotion.
The contaminated milk was then picked up by a Fonterra tanker – the first step in its journey towards customers’ fridges and breakfast tables.
A Fonterra spokesperson would not comment on details of this specific incident but said after the case that it was standard procedure to test milk for contaminants, like penicillin, when it was picked up, and again at the factory.
Hutchinson, 22, admitted a charge of intentional damage when he appeared at the Palmerston North District Court on Tuesday.
According to the police summary of facts, Hutchinson told police he knew his offending would cost his boss a lot of money.
After cleaning the milk vats before morning milking on August 27, he went to a locked store and took a 30 millilitre syringe of penicillin.
Penicillin is usually used to treat cows, but Hutchinson injected it into a milk line, which went into one of the freshly cleaned vats.
He then left and went home, while a Fonterra tanker picked up the milk that had been put in the vat.
That milk, then contaminated, then mixed with the milk already in the tanker. The summary did not say how the contamination was found.
Defence lawyer Mark Alderdice said Hutchinson had worked his way up the ladder at the farm, but then got knocked down a rung after someone else was hired.
He approached his manager about it for an explanation, but never got given one.
The offending was not massively pre-meditated, Alderdice said.
«He woke up that morning, went and got the antibiotic and put it in the machine. He regrets his actions.»
Judge Jim Large said everyone had difficulties in life, but no one was allowed to address them in the way Hutchinson did.
He sentenced the worker to two months’ community detention, requiring him to be home from 7pm until 5am each night.
Hutchinson was also ordered to pay $10,921 in reparation for the milk.
Alderdice said Hutchinson planned to pay off the bill at $20 a week – which puts the repayment period at 10 years and four months.
 

 Source: Stuff

Mirá También

Así lo expresó Domingo Possetto, secretario de la seccional Rafaela, quien además, afirmó que a los productores «habitualmente los ignoran los gobiernos». Además, reconoció la labor de los empresarios de las firmas locales y aseguró que están «esperanzados» con la negociación entre SanCor y Adecoagro.

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