Sir,

Pembrokeshire County Council prosecuted our business under the Food Hygiene (Wales) 2006 regulations in respect of breaches identified in October 2012, as they claimed that to do so was in the public interest. This resulted in our appearance before the magistrates court on January 27, as previously reported.

In April 2013, after a new routine monitoring visit, we were awarded a four-star Food Hygiene Rating which is officially classified as good. We still hold that rating today, so our customers need have no concerns.

Sadly, however, we believe that PCC's actions could now have an adverse affect on our business which could in turn cast doubt over the future not only for ourselves, but for our employees too. We believe that the fact that PCC have not revisited since the four rating was awarded in April 2013 is a sign that PCC accept that the breaches were of a one-off nature and that PCC have confidence in the management and controls going forward.

We would just like to thank our customers and staff for their support to date and encourage everybody to pay more attention to our current rating of four and to our reviews on TripAdvisor. The offences are now superceded by our current Food Standard rating.

We have operated in the area since 2005 and have never been the subject of any action previously. The situation discovered at the routine monitoring visit in October 2012 was, we agree, not acceptable. There were, however, a number of mitigating factors that PCC, we feel, failed to sufficiently recognise.

Of paramount importance was that we remedied the situation and dealt with their concerns immediately. Whilst we accept that the original concerns were valid, it needs putting into context.

We voluntarily closed the premises at lunchtime on October 11, 2012, and we were subsequently cleared to re-open by PCC enforcement officers the very same evening. Consequently, in our opinion, this offence could and should have been dealt with, given the mitigating circumstances and historical compliance, by way of a caution.

Under the guidelines of the Food Standards Agency Wales, 'officers should operate a graduated and educative approach (the hierarchy of enforcement) starting at the bottom of the pyramid, i.e. advice/education and informal action and only move to more formal action where the informal action does not achieve the desired effect'. However, the stance that PCC have taken was in our opinion adversarial from the outset.

In summary, therefore, this prosecution does not appear to be in line with the FSA's Food Law Code of Practice (Wales) of July 2013. If to prosecute was truly in the public interest, why did it take PCC 15 months to do so?

The FSA guidelines state 'where appropriate, decisions to prosecute should be taken at the earliest opportunity'. Under statute, PCC had a calendar year in which to commence any prosecution or such action would become time barred. Having heard nothing at all from PCC since March 2013, we were dismayed to receive prosecution notices 363 days after the original offences; just two days within the statutory deadline and some six or seven months since the last communication from PCC.

Ian Griffiths,

on behalf of

The Royal Oak,

Saundersfoot.