ENVIRONMENTAL health officers discovered a horrific scene when they raided a seafood processing firm, a jury heard.

Officers were met with the smell of rotting fish when they arrived at the Brookenby premises of Allan Rich Seafoods Ltd.

Jonathan Goulding, prosecuting, told the jury at Lincoln Crown Court the scene was described by one council official as the worst she had experienced in 11 years of working.

"There was a strong smell of decaying fish around the premises and a number of flies in the lobby," he said.

He said open drains in food production and storage areas led directly to the main sewer and broken windows and holes in the fabric of the building at Brookenby Technical Park allowed easy access to rats and other vermin.

At the time, the company was processing fish for a number of shops and restaurants as well as storing large amounts of stock for other firms.

The situation led staff from West Lindsey District Council and Lincolnshire County Council trading standards to serve hygiene improvement notices requiring the firm to clean up the building and carry out repairs.

A second inspection in August 2008 revealed the required improvements had not been completed.

Mr Goulding said that the following month, health officers found evidence of rat droppings in the loading bay and a dead rat was found in a plastic container.

This time an emergency notice closing down the premises was served, but Mr Goulding said that within 24 hours it was breached as 2,000kgs of salmon was moved out to a store in Grimsby.

"It is the prosecution case that this was a flagrant breach as he knew it wasn't to continue as a food business," said Mr Goulding.

A subsequent visit by health and trading standards officers on September 23, 2008, revealed out-of-date and rotting fish food in a cold store, the jury was told.

"A lot of it was old with 2005 use-by dates," said Mr Goulding.

When the company managing director Roland Saldanha was shown maggots, he said there had been problems with the electricity supply.

Allan Rich Seafoods Ltd denies eight breaches of food hygiene regulations and six breaches of animal by-products regulations.

Saldanha, 69, formerly of Lancaster Road, Brookenby, and now living in Gipsy Hill, South East London, denies seven breaches of food hygiene regulations and seven breaches of animal by-product regulations. The offences are alleged to have taken place between August and November 2008.

The trial continues.