Company directors of a Birmingham firm have been accused of putting ‘unsafe’ hand sanitizers on the market during the coronavirus pandemic, a court has heard.
The Birmingham Magistrates’ Court has heard that Big Living Ltd. is accused of supplying hundreds of containers of hand gel with less than 30 percent alcohol, but advertised that 80 percent of them.
According to Birmingham Live, it is also alleged that the firm based in Digbeth led trade standards executives on a ‘wild goose chase’ as they attempted to track down the product to ensure it was removed from the market. be given.
LR Jeevan Sagoo, Rajika Sagoo and Robert Healy leave Birmingham Magistrates’ Court
Big Living, based in Birchall Street, Digbeth, denies two charges of placing an unsafe product on the market, one count of engaging in deceptive commercial practice and one count of deceptive advertising.
Moseley’s Jeevan Sagu, 40, and Sajika Sagu, 36, have both been named directors of Big Living, which was terminated last year, and have pleaded not guilty to the same crime.
The pair are also involved in Desktop IT, an IT support company also based in Digbeth. The company was represented by director Robert Healy at the hearing on Monday (March 21).
The product label claimed the gel ‘kills 99.9 percent of germs’. But prosecutor Mark Jackson, representing Birmingham City Council, told the court it would “not kill anything, and certainly will not kill the coronavirus.”
He said, ‘This is a case of misleading supply of hand sanitizers during the Kovid-19 epidemic.
‘Consumers believed it to have an alcohol content of 80 percent, while it actually had a 28 percent alcohol content.’
Testing of the original sample of the product found it contained 27.6 percent alcohol, not the 80 percent advertised on the label. About 60 percent were found in other samples tested during the test.
Mr Jackson told the court Big Living, which is listed as selling home improvement items and clothing and shoes, ‘produced’ the sanitizer by re-branding it under Mr Sagoo’s trademark name Chemist Plus.
He said it was not known who built the prison.
The case is being heard at Birmingham Magistrates’ Court
Concerns about the product were raised in July 2020 after a consumer purchased the gel on eBay from a wholesaler who obtained it from Big Living.
Mr. Jackson reported that the court had been alerted to trade standards, but when he contacted the business, Mr. Sagoo claimed that the hand gel was supplied by another wholesaler.
He said during the next few months, council officials were ‘misled’ that Big Living, run by Mr. Sagoo, had obtained the sanitizer and to whom they supplied it.
‘They were supplying this stuff everywhere and keeping it secret,’ he said.
‘They were asked to immediately inform the officer to track where the unsafe product has gone.
‘The best officers were being misled. Even worse they were completely and utterly dishonest.
‘The reality is that even now the officials don’t know to whom they sent this stuff because they didn’t bother to tell them.’
He said Jeevan Sagoo had ‘provided misleading information and failed to cooperate with the investigation’, and added that co-defendants Rajika Sagoo and ‘Desktop IT’ had ‘disregarded duty’ in their roles as designated directors of Big Living. appeared.
“There was an absolute contempt for the efforts of this company and the directors by these executives to track down an unsafe product that was placed on the market during the pandemic,” he said.
‘The officers were being misled left, right and middle.’
Trial continues.
