No allergy information on show at Pret branch linked to death, inquest told

The Pret a Manger branch which sold a baguette linked to the death of a teenager was found without allergy information on display the following year, an inquest has heard.

Natasha Ednan-Laperouse, a 15-year-old with numerous allergies, collapsed on a British Airways flight from London to Nice on July 17 2016.

She had been travelling with her father and best friend when she stopped to get an artichoke, olive and tapenade baguette as they passed through Heathrow Airport’s terminal five.

Unknown to the group, the sandwich dough contained sesame seed, a detail not mentioned on its packaging, according to a statement from her father, Nadim Ednan-Laperouse, read on the first day of her inquest at West London Coroner’s Court.

Natasha was allergic to the ingredient and suffered a cardiac arrest, despite two epipens being applied to her legs. She was declared dead the same day at a Nice hospital.

The inquest was told on Monday that Pret usually has transparent stickers with white text stuck to its fridges, outlining allergy information.

The family’s lawyer, Jeremy Hyam QC, suggested these had not been in place in July 2016, when he questioned the general manager of the branch at the time, Abdoulaye-Djouma Diallo.

Between April and December 2016, allergy stickers were ordered on repeated occasions for the tills and fridges, or “langers” – amounting to 30 till stickers and 25 langer stickers.

By contrast, none had been ordered between May 2015, when the manager started, and April 2016.

Mr Hyam said this seemed “bizarre”, but Mr Diallo insisted they were bought in preparation for a forthcoming refurbishment, with the remainder serving as “back-up”.

The lawyer suggested “an alternative theory”, telling the inquest: “My suggestion is that you ordered them because you knew there were missing stickers.”

He continued: “Although the absence of stickers were being identified and although stickers were being ordered, they weren’t actually being put on the langers.”

Mr Diallo denied this, saying he would not order stickers to “leave them in the office”.

However, Mr Hyam then told him a health officer from Hillingdon Council visited the terminal five branch in May 2017 and reported “there were no till stickers to be seen at the till area”.

The manager said he left the branch in December 2016, but was “confident and sure” he had put them on the tills and fridges.

Earlier in the hearing, Natasha’s father described how the teenager said “Daddy, help me” as she struggled for breath.

Mr Ednan-Laperouse’s statement, read to the inquest by Mr Hyam, said: “How could it be that such a terrible thing could have happened when we were so careful with food?”

Natasha suffered from food allergies her entire life, but had learnt to diligently scrutinise food labels and was alert to the dangers of cross-contamination.

The group had gone to the Pret branch at 7am, around one hour before they were due to fly.

“Natasha told me she had found a baguette that contained all the ingredients she loved and could eat,” her father’s statement said.

The label gave “no indication or mention that sesame seeds were present”, he said, adding: “Natasha and I relied on food information and saw no need to ask Pret counter staff if any other information was needed.”

Natasha at first felt her throat growing itchy and took some piriton.

Around 20 minutes into the flight, she complained it was getting worse and her father noticed her neck looked red, as if she had been rubbing it.

Shortly afterwards she returned from the toilet with vicious red hives on her midriff “like a jellyfish sting”, the inquest heard.

Giving evidence on Monday, her father said: “[She told me] ‘Daddy, I’m not feeling well’ and she lifted up her top and she displayed these red welts like lacerations which I had not seen before, but I understood something unbelievable was going on.”

She was rushed to the cabin’s toilets, where her father applied a first epipen jab, followed by another when her symptoms did not abate.

“Natasha said that she still couldn’t breathe and desperately looked at me, she said ‘Daddy, help me, I can’t breathe’.”

She soon lost consciousness and cabin staff were aided by a recently qualified junior doctor in applying CPR for the remainder of the journey.

The doctor, Thomas Pearson-Jones, had graduated from Oxford University the day before and was a passenger on the flight.

As hope began to fade that unconscious Natasha would survive, her father put a phone to her ear in hospital so her mother and brother could say goodbye.

He also asked his mother to visit a Pret branch in west London to examine the sandwich.

Finding nothing on the label or on the shelf, his mother made inquiries at the counter and was handed a folder of information.

“My mother looked down the list and found that the baguette dough had sesame seed inside it,” the statement said.

“I was stunned that a big food company like Pret could mislabel a sandwich and this could cause my daughter to die.”

The inquest is due to last until Friday.