THE "founding father" of a £1 million food fraud which saw unfit and diseased meat sold to a Bury company has been sentenced to six years imprisonment in his absence.

Peter Roberts -- known in the meat trade as Maggot Pete -- has been on the run in southern Europe since police uncovered his role in the six-year-long racket, in which 450 tonnes of chicken and turkey, in most cases unfit even for pets, was doctored to make it appear healthy.

The court had heard that B Davies Meats, based in Bury, unknowingly sold the unfit poultry as fillet to Kwik Save.

The 68-year-old, who failed to appear for sentence at Nottingham Crown Court on Friday, was handed a five-year prison term after he was earlier convicted of conspiracy to defraud and a separate one-year sentence for a bail offence.

Jurors in an earlier trial had heard that he was at the head of a chain of supply at his Denby Poultry Products firm, in Derbyshire.

The court was told that the food was butchered in sewage ridden and rat infested premises in Denby and driven to customers in vans crawling with insects.

Roberts made more than £500,000 from the fraud.

Sentencing Roberts, of Francis Street, Derby, Judge Richard Benson said: "Under the auspices of Peter Roberts the business turned into a dreadful enterprise which exploited the vulnerability of the general public.

"If he had not been the founding father none of this would have happened."