A mouse-infested supermarket and the restaurant next door have been fined more than £10,000 following raids by council environmental health investigators.

Sapna Cash and Carry and the neighbouring Swad Restaurant in London Road, Thornton Heath, were forced to close for several days after officers found mouse droppings, gnawed food packaging and holes in the doors and floor providing easy access for vermin.

Shop owners Sudhurkumar Patel and Niruben Patel and eatery owner My Crown Restaurants were all handed fines and costs of £3,500 after pleading guilty to three offences under the Food Hygiene Regulations at Croydon Magistrates Court.

A separate raid on London Road butchers Norbury Halal Meat found the owners had largely ignored a previous environmental health notice, with officers rating the building ‘marginally unsafe’.

Although officers saw some improvements to the shop’s cleaning regime, the council went ahead with prosecution after investigators decided the changes had not gone far enough.

Owners Tanveer Mahmood and Tariq Ahmed both pleaded guilty to failing to comply with a Hygiene Improvement Notice, and were ordered to pay the court more than £2,500 each.

Councillor Steve O’Connell, cabinet member for community safety, said: “Shoppers and diners need to be able to trust that the food they are buying is healthy and uncontaminated.

“The vast majority of businesses in the borough are clean and hygienic, but our food safety team are constantly on the lookout for anyone who is cutting corners and failing to apply the basic rules as people’s lives can be put at risk when standards are allowed to slip.”