Meal Mistake (From The Oxford Times)

Meal Mistake

3:48pm Friday 3rd July 2009 in

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TWO young boys who suffer from a wheat allergy became ill after being wrongly given pasta by a stand-in chef at their school.

Six-year-old Brandon Atkins and Angus Devine, 11, became hyperactive and suffered from vomiting and diarrhoea for several days after being served macaroni cheese at Wood Farm Primary School.

The boys both suffer from coeliac disease and the school’s usual chef gives them wheat-free meals – but a stand-in chef did not on Thursday, June 25.

Angus’ mother Ruth Devine, 32, said it took several days to establish what happened.

She added: “When I contacted the school I was told that every child had macaroni cheese on Thursday which is definitely not suitable for Angus.

Miss Devine contacted her friend Mandy Atkins, whose son, also a sufferer of coeliac and at the same school, had come down with the same symptoms.

Ms Atkins, of Lambton Close, said she noticed a change in Brandon’s behaviour when she arrived at the school to pick him up.

Brandon was kicking and screaming at the teachers so hysterically he had to be held down.

Oxfordshire County Council spokesman Paul Smith said: “In all our schools we have lists of children who have an allergy and we are rigorous in the systems we have to deal with such situations.

“On this one occasion a mistake was made, for which we apologise.”

Miss Devine added that she did not consider the alternative meals normally offered by the council to be adequate.

She said: “Even when they get it right, most of the time Angus will end up with jacket potato or rice and that’s not exactly a good diet, is it?

“If you’re a vegetarian, or you take halal or kosher foods, then the school will cater for that fine. But that is a choice – coeliac isn’t.”

news@oxfordmail.co.uk