A restaurant boss who ran a “dim and grisly” Wolverhampton city centre takeaway has been banned from running food businesses ever again, after being branded a hazard by a judge.

Imran Khan, who ran Hot N Spicy in Wolverhampton’s Broad Street, was given a suspended sentence by the judge who heard details of how piles of rubbish were strewn around the back of the takeaway, a fridge was broken and a deep fat fryer was being propped up on bricks.

Khan, aged 34, admitted 20 charges relating to the state of the premises and a further charge of failing to answer bail when he fled court proceedings to Pakistan.

Wolverhampton Crown Court heard yesterday how the business, which is now under new management, had been visited 100 times by council officials amid concerns over its cleanliness between November 2008 and September 2010.

They found chicken and donor kebab meat being stored dangerously and evidence that birds and rodents had chewed rubbish bags at the back of the property. Waste had gone uncollected because Khan could not afford to pay contractors to take it away and one employee was caught smoking in a food preparation area.

Khan, of Aubrey Road, Small Heath, Birmingham, was given a suspended sentence in November 2008 after admitting 12 hygiene offences at his former takeaway, King Kebab, on Broad Street. But he continued to flout hygiene rules within days of that and showed that he “did not care” about the hygienic running of the Hot N Spicy, Recorder Mr Stephen Thomas told him.

Mr Thomas said: “You are clearly a hazard to food preparation and hygiene. If you couldn’t afford to run a business properly, you shouldn’t have been running it.

“The people of Wolverhampton deserve better than having people like you involved in food preparation and food business.”

As well as the indefinite food preparation ban, he was given a six month prison sentence, suspended for 18 months, ordered to do 100 hours of unpaid work and abide by a curfew. He was ordered to pay £3,000 costs and £6,000 in fines.

There was no evidence that customers had fallen ill as a result of Hot N Spicy’s food.