Cider-maker fined over bug deaths

4:34pm Tuesday 1st July 2008

Cider-maker HP Bulmer and its water treatment contractor have been each fined £300,000 for health and safety breaches which led to a fatal outbreak of Legionnaires' disease.

Judge Alistair McCreath also ordered the Hereford-based drinks firm and Nalco Limited to pay more than £50,000 each in prosecution costs after hearing two people died and more than 20 other members of the public fell ill in the city in 2003.

Passing sentence at Hereford Crown Court, Judge McCreath said the failure to clean two cooling towers adequately at Bulmer's mill in Plough Lane, Hereford, in September 2003 was "almost beyond belief".