Akbar Khan is the owner of Khan’s Bargain shop in Peckham and has recently been sentenced for four months in prison after attempting to hide evidence for selling a pesticide that was previously banned, to a woman.
The 23-year-old woman who had bought the toxin, used it to commit suicide by swallowing the mosquito killer in June. The paramedics could not save her life, having swallowed 100ml of the pesticide to end her life in her home at Consort Road.
The pesticide went by the name ‘Sniper DDVP’, and was labelled with the aforementioned shop’s name. Another evidence for the case was a receipt of the banned product, which was also found in her bag.
After the suicide event, Southwark Trading Standards officers went by the shop on the same day and discovered a further nine containers labeled as Sniper DDVP.
Khan’s actions for crossing EU Biocide regulations had already led him to getting fined for £26,000 earlier in March. He claimed the banned toxin to be a free sample that he received from Maxim Marketing, a company run by Taufiq Jhaveri. After Jhaveri passed away, Khan visited his family to get them to support his claims.
The judge, had decided to punish his actions with a sentence of four months in prison for trying to cover up the distribution of a dangerous and illegal toxin that was banned in 2002, and concluded the trial with the following, “This offence is so serious that only immediate custody is appropriate. I have no other option but to send you to prison – you must be punished and others must be deterred from committing similar offences.”
Khan’s lawyer, Ms Sarah Ellis, claimed that he tried to hide his actions as a form of panic, and this was the reason for not telling the truth about the doctored invoices. The judge claimed that Khan had worsened his situation when trying to convince Taufiq Jhaveri’s family to support him.
Akbar not only has to serve four months in prison, but also has to pay the prosecution fees, that are around £2,394.
The death of the 23-year-old woman shows that a lot more attention should be paid to shops and their illegal products as they can easily end up fatal, like in this case. Hopefully this tragedy will serve as a hint for authorities that actions are needed to regulate the operations of private shops.
