DETECTIVES today said the net was closing in on the ringleader of a "wicked and dangerous" £1million food fraud, which saw condemned poultry supplied to supermarkets, cafes and snack bars across the country -- including East Lancashire.

Four accomplices were jailed after Denby Poultry Products Ltd, of Denby, sold thousands of tons of chickens and turkeys unfit for human consumption from its rat-infested and sewage-ridden factory.

The six-year operation saw 450 tonnes of chicken and turkey, in most cases unfit even for pets, doctored to make it appear healthy, before it was sold into the human food chain from sewage-ridden and rat-infested premises in Denby, Derbyshire.

The ringleader of the gang Peter Roberts, known as 'Maggot Pete', remains at large on the continent after he was convicted in his absence of conspiracy to defraud at an earlier trial.

One driver told the court in June he took meat to stores, cafes and butchers in Blackburn, Burnley, Oldham and Leyland.

Nottingham Crown Court was told that the racket involved a chain of supply that stretched from Denby Poultry Products to businesses in Northampton, Milton Keynes and Bury who supplied the produce, in many cases unwittingly, to about 600 customers across the UK.

The meat, which should in most cases have been rendered at high-temperatures or buried in landfill sites, ended up in products on supermarket shelves.

Four men were last week jailed for a total of 10 years and a fifth man received a suspended sentence after they had earlier admitted a charge of conspiracy to defraud.

Judge Richard Benson told them: "You five were involved in a wicked fraud, it was dangerous and it was the general public who were in danger.

"The people who consume drugs know the risks involved, your victims didn't. Anyone in their right mind wouldn't have eaten the food you put into the human food chain had they known what it was."

Roberts, 68, of Francis Street, Derby, who owned Denby Poultry for much of the period of the fraud, fled Britain before the start of a three-month trial and officers are now conducting inquiries across Europe to trace him.

David Lawton, 55, of Beech Avenue, Sandiacre, Derbyshire, a former manager and owner of Denby Poultry, had also pleaded guilty to a charge of attempting to pervert the course of justice and was jailed for a total of four years and three months.

Robert Mattock, 59, of Longley Hall, Norland, Sowerby Bridge, West Yorkshire, who ran the firm between December 1999 and February 2000, was handed a two-year jail sentence.

George Allen, 47, of Downall Green Road, Ashton in Makenfield, Lancashire, described as an 'ad-hoc foreman' at Denby, was given a 15-month prison sentence.

Gary Drewett, the owner of MK Poultry, a food processor in Northampton, which supplied the rotten meat and often added European health stamps to the produce, was also jailed.

The 33-year-old, of St Johns Road, Bletchley, Buckinghamshire, received a two-and-a-half-year sentence.

Mark Durrant, 31, of Kingsford, Milton Keynes, a manager at MK Poultry, was given a 12-month suspended sentence and walked free from the court.