A HOB used by chefs at a Chinese restaurant to cook wok dishes was covered in grease and grimy water, Swindon magistrates were told.

Chefs at Oriental Express, on Cricklade Road, used the filthy water to sluice their pans between washes.

Despite warnings from council environmental health officers, then manager of the business Yang Li repeatedly failed to the turnaround filthy conditions in the kitchen.

Li, 36, pleaded guilty to seven counts of breaching food safety and hygiene regulations. He was ordered to pay more than £4,700 in costs, fines and victim surcharge.

Phil Wirth, for Swindon Borough Council, said officers had visited zero-rated Oriental Express on July 17 last year. Li and another chef, neither of whom could speak English, were preparing food.

A Chinese wok range – like a normal hob range, but with the cooking rings sat above a trough of water – was full of brown, dirty water in which was floating pieces of food. “The dirty water was being used to rinse out the woks between washes,” said Mr Wirth.

Cleaning practices were poor. The handle of a toilet door was encrusted with dirt and debris, the chiller door handle was greasy, floors and larger items of kitchen equipment were encrusted with ground-in old food debris, grease and black detritus. The main cooking range was in a filthy condition; burnt grease and debris coated the range.

Raw and cooked food was kept in close proximity, an old laundry basket was used to store cooked rice and a makeshift rice scoop had been fashioned out of a plastic bottle. A screen meant to prevent flies from getting into the kitchen was ineffective, with the insects spotted crawling on food. Spare ribs – praised in a recent Adver review of the restaurant - had been left out on a preparation area for at least 90 minutes and, when probed, were found to have a temperature of 30.2C – said to pose a risk of contamination risk.

When officers returned a week later, they found the kitchen was in a much better state. The kitchen was clean and the water in the Chinese range was fresh.

However, the situation had spiralled by the time environmental health officers revisited in February. Mr Wirth said: “Although the defendant new perfectly well what needed to be done to keep the premises clean and the food safe and hygienic, the premises had deteriorated again to a condition which was consistent with the first inspection.

“Officers found serious contamination risks between raw and ready-to-eat foods. They found poor personal hygiene by the chef and his assistant. They found temperature control issues again. They found cleaning of the structure in a poor state again.” A food safety checklist had also not been completed.

Li, representing himself, initially told magistrates he did not want to say anything in his defence. However, with the aid of a Chinese interpreter he went on to say he no longer ran Oriental Express but had rented the business from its owner between November 2017 and October the following year.

“I’m no good at running the business,” he added.

Magistrates fined Li £720 and ordered he pay the borough’s costs of £3,956 and a £72 victim surcharge.

Amanda Lee, chairman of the bench, said: “We take into account you have been of previous good character, but we also had to take into account that when [the council] went back to the premises in February it had deteriorated. You were given the opportunity to make things better and that did not happen.”

An earlier version of this article named the defendant as Li Yang. The Adver would like to apologise for this error.