A cocktail served in a glass mistakenly frosted with a cleaning chemical cost Brentwood's Cafe Rouge£;9,000 last week.

The Pelican Group Plc, which owns the restaurant in the High Street, pleaded guilty at Basildon Crown Court to offences under the Health and Safety at Work Act and was fined £6,500 and ordered to pay £2,500 costs.

The court heard that on January 1, 1999 customer Rosalie Kurton ordered the cocktail following a meal at the restaurant.

Tom Cosgrove, prosecuting, said earlier that afternoon barman Mickael Bourgatte had been cleaning cutlery using the chemical tannin, which comes in white crystal form "and could possibly be mistaken for sugar."

Mr Bourgatte poured some of the crystals into an unmarked white bowl, which he left in the bar area before finishing his shift and leaving the premises.

A waitress mistook the contents of the bowl for sugar and frosted the rim of Ms Kurton's glass with it, leaving Ms Kurton with injuries to her tongue.

She later made a complaint to Brentwood Borough Council's environmental health department, which brought the case against Caf Rouge. She was paid an undisclosed amount of compensation by the restaurant.

Kevin Dehaan, mitigating, said the company offered an "unequivocal and public apology" to Ms Kurton and added that the incident was "purely a culmination of human errors."

He said that at the time of the incident Mr Bourgatte had been working with the company as a barman for about three months and had been "well and truly trained" in the use of tannin, but said: "one is not blaming him in the least, one accepts that human error can occur."

He said that since then, the company had tightened up safety procedures.

Summing up, Judge Peter Thompson said: "The company has taken this matter very seriously, as they should. It is also worth noting that the company has not got a record of any previous convictions."

Following the hearing a spokesman for Caf Rouge said: "As the court heard, we have apologised to Ms Kurton.

''Without doubt, what happened in January 1999 can only be described as an unfortunate and regrettable incident and we have implemented a number of procedures to ensure that this can never happen again.

"Caf Rouge is a responsible restauranteur and of course we remain committed to maintaining the highest levels of practice in safety and hygienic standards for both our guests and our staff."

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