Customers who became seriously ill after eating Cadbury’s chocolate contaminated with salmonella are in line for hefty compensation payments after the company yesterday admitted its guilt.

Shaun Garratty, 44, a senior staff nurse, from Rotherham, is one of 12 victims to have approached Irwin Mitchell solicitors to handle claims against the company.

Cadbury Schweppes plc, the world’s largest confectionery group, faces unlimited fines for the incident when a total of 37 people, including toddlers and other children aged under 10, became ill with a rare strain of Salmonella montevideo. During a ten-minute hearing at Birmingham magistrates’ court Anthony Scrivener, QC, representing the company, entered guilty pleas to charges of selling unsafe chocolate, failing to report salmonella immediately and for failing food hygiene and hazard controls.

The case has now been referred for sentencing to the city’s Crown Court on July 13.

Mr Garratty spent seven weeks in hospital last year critically ill after contracting Salmonella montevideo and now he fears that his nursing career and his commission as a captain in the Territorial Army might be in jeopardy.

He is pleased that Cadbury’s has admitted guilt but now wants to know what the firm is going to do for him.

Before the incident he was a fitness fanatic and went hiking, cycling, mountain biking or swimming twice a week. He always took two bars of chocolate on the trips, usually a Cadbury’s Dairy Milk and a Cadbury’s Caramel bar. He also ate one as a snack each day at work.

In an interview with The Times Mr Garratty, a father of four, said that he first became ill with food-poisoning symptoms in January 2006.

It was on January 19 that Cadbury first discovered salmonella at its Marlbrook factory in Herefordshire and believed it was down to a leaky tap.

Mr Garratty was taking antibiotics for a chest infection at the time and his GP thought the stomach pains and diarrhoea were connected to the medicine.

By March he was still suffering serious stomach cramps, nausea and diarrhoea and had lost 3st. He collapsed at home and was rushed to hospital in Sheffield.

“I was dehydrated. They put me on an intravenous drip and I felt so ill I thought I was going to die.

“My gastroenterologist told me if I had not been so fit I would have died. Six weeks after being in hospital they thought my bowel had perforated and I had to have a laparoscopy. I was told my intestines were inflamed and swollen.”

He was released in May but he was frail, lethargic and in need of recuperation. In June Cadbury informed the Food Standards Agency that it had found salmonella contamination in its chocolate and was forced to withdraw one million bars from sale.

Health officials at the same time informed Mr Garratty that he was suffering a rare strain of salmonella and that in the UK it was linked only to contaminated chocolate crumb used by Cadbury.

Even though he returned to work in October he has not fully recovered. He is easily fatigued and is still suffering episodic bouts of diarrhoea.

A consultant has told him the illness has left him with a form of irritable bowel syndrome and it could take 18 months to recover.

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