CADBURY’S and its board of directors may face criminal prosecution after its chocolate was named by health chiefs as the most likely source of an outbreak of food poisoning.

The Health Protection Agency (HPA) has established the likelihood that 37 people, including many toddlers and others under the age of 10, had become ill with the rare strain of salmonella montevideo after eating Cadbury’s chocolate.

A study of food diaries of each victim found that 13 had eaten Cadbury’s chocolate, a fourteenth recalled eating chocolate but could not remember the brand, and a fifteenth person, in Wales, had also eaten a Cadbury’s product.

There was no other common food or drink item eaten by the victims.

This concrete link between health chiefs and the firm, which trades in Britain as Cadbury Trebor Bassett, a subsidiary of Cadbury-Schweppes, also heightens the prospect of a group legal action by victims for compensation. There are also questions raised over how much contaminated chocolate may still be on sale.

The Food Standards Agency (FSA) has already said that other infected Cadbury’s products may still be on sale as the suspect base ingredient was used in as many as 43 product lines.

Tests by the company and by food safety officials have so far found no evidence of the bug in other products, however.

The Outbreak Control Team (OCT), in a statement through the HPA, said: “After carefully considering all the available evidence, the OCT concluded that the consumption of products made by Cadbury Schweppes was the most credible explanation for the outbreak.”

Hugh Pennington, one of the country’s leading microbiologists, said: “There may still be a bit of chocolate lying somewhere and it is up to Cadbury’s to ensure that their recall has worked; but this whole incident raises the questions of how competent they are on safety issues. They should have acted a bit more rapidly in January when they discovered the outbreak.”

The last reported case of sickness was on June 23. This is the same day that Cadbury’s issued a recall of a million bars and admitted that it had known for five months that the bacteria may be in the chocolate.

Cadbury’s recalled seven product lines: 250g Dairy Milk Turkish, Dairy Milk Caramel and Dairy Milk Mint bars, the Dairy Milk 8 Chunk, the 1kg Dairy Milk, the 105g Dairy Milk Buttons Easter Egg, and the 10p Freddo bar. This recall occurred five days after the FSA asked the company for details about salmonella in chocolate.

A spokeswoman said: “We feel we have done all we can to remove these from sale. I can’t say hand on heart that there is not a suspect one out there, but we really have tried to do everything we can to recall them.”

Cadbury’s still refuses to reveal the names of other products that may be affected. A spokeswoman said: “We have had no positive tests on any other products, so all other products are safe to eat.”

Investigators at Birmingham City, Herefordshire District and North East Somerset Council are still sifting through evidence to decide whether to take legal action against the firm for selling unfit food and failing to report the contamination found in the chocolate.

They must decide whether to pursue the company itself for food safety breaches or whether to bring proceedings against individual directors if it can be shown that the contaminated chocolate went on sale by some act of negligence, omission or connivance.

Any fines, however, even if they reach £150,000, are insignificant compared with the loss of confidence and trust in Cadbury’s brand that is worth £1 billion a year in UK sales alone.

Cadbury’s has already admitted it knew that its chocolate bars contained salmonella but decided that the risks to human health were so low that the products were safe. The recall has already cost £5 million.

A prosecution in the magistrates court brings a maximum fine of £20,000 per product. Fines in the crown court are unlimited, but legal experts believe the authorities will choose action in the lower court.

Hilary Ross, food safety partner at the solicitors Berwin Leighton Paisner, said: “Now that a connection has been established between the outbreak and Cadbury’s, it is almost inevitable that a criminal prosecution will be brought under the Food Safety Act 1990. I think this will be for providing food that is injurious to health and I think there will be an additional prosecution for failure to report the outbreak under general food regulations.

“For food laws and food safety enforcement in Britain to remain credible, a prosecution needs to take place. You cannot have this disregard for food safety going unchecked.”

Catherine Henderson, 62, of Co Antrim, Northern Ireland, who spent five days in a hospital isolation ward with salmonella montevideo poisoning, is so far the only person ready to sue Cadbury’s. She believes that she became ill after eating a Cadbury’s Caramel bar.

The Cadbury’s spokeswoman said: “We regret that people have been unwell. We have already changed our testing protocol and implemented new procedures to reassure consumers that any product showing any trace of salmonella will be destroyed, regardless of how low the level.”

Cadbury’s blamed the outbreak on a leaky pipe at its Marlbrook factory, near Leo- minster, Herefordshire. The firm has been ordered to clean and dismantle equipment at the plant within six months.

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