By Cam Lucadou-Wells
I Cook Foods director Ian Cook has told an inquiry that his company was destroyed by health authorities despite “unequivocal proof” of its innocence.
ICF was shut down as part of a state health department and City of Greater Dandenong investigation into a hospital patient’s death who contracted listeriosis in early 2019.
A Parliamentary inquiry has been re-opened into what it described as the company’s “inappropriate” closure after evidence alleged that the patient didn’t eat ICF products. It contradicts testimony by senior officials at the inquiry last year, the inquiry’s terms of reference notes.
“We didn’t kill anybody,” Mr Cook said.
“The Department of Health and Human Services knew this before they closed us.
“The City of Greater Dandenong were informed shortly after and yet still proceeded to charge me.”
Mr Cook compared the “double standard” of a recent case of a company which provided a Meals on Wheels meal positively linked to the death of an elderly man.
The business was recently contacted the council’s environmental health officer and said the case was closed with no further action.
“Good people who were directly involved… reached out to me and shared this evidence because they saw the lies being told about I Cook Foods and they couldn’t stand it.”
“Now the business did actually provide a meal to the elderly man that contained listeria mono.
“My business has never contributed to the death of anyone.”
Mr Cook said ICF was treated differently because it was a commercial rival of Community Chef, a caterer co-funded by the health department and several councils including Greater Dandenong.
“How can a council be allowed to regulate a commercial rival? As I have said before it would be like giving Hungry Jacks the power to close down McDonald’s and take all their customers.”
Community Chef were “going broke” and were “advantaged” by getting ICF “out of the way”, he said.
Mr Cook said four police investigations in the past two years had failed to lay charges for the “most serious crimes on our statutes” on those behind the closure.
“Now thanks to the intervention of Chief Commissioner Shane Patton, the investigation … has reopened.
“I need to believe VicPol will now focus only on the police work and leave the politics to others.”
The Government was running a “protection racket” for Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton, who issued the “unlawful” closure order.
Professor Sutton told a press conference he was acting out of an “abundance of caution” to protect elderly people at risk, Mr Cook noted.
“Through all of this, I have been forced to watch Dr Brett Sutton, a man who I maintain lied and destroyed my business and who Detective Ash Penry calls a person of interest in serious crimes, being given unfettered powers to lock up 6.4 million Victorians.
“I strongly believe this Government is running a protection racket for Dr Sutton. This needs to stop regardless of the pandemic.”
He refuted council and health department evidence at the inquiry in 2020 – or what he called “provable lies” that had become “more stark and easier to prove”.
“That day was one of the most difficult times of my life as I had to listen to the misrepresentations and what clearly seemed to me to be lies from people in positions of trust that we should be able to rely on and respect.
“I could not stop thinking of the 41 jobs that were deliberately destroyed along with my business.
“Those jobs belonged to incredibly good people who didn’t deserve to have their lives and their families’ lives destroyed by corruption.”
He rejected the council’s claims of defects at his factory, which became the basis of 96 “fabricated” food-safety charges that were ultimately dropped by the council.
They included the allegedly planted slug on the floor, and water pooling observed while staff were washing the floor.
At the inquiry in 2020, Greater Dandenong Council tabled a “misleading” list of ICF “non-compliances” in previous years, such as a stone being found in rice provided by a supplier, Mr Cook said.
ICF has launched a $50 million lawsuit against the council and health department for the closure.
“We’re strong. We’re not going away. This is not just about myself, my family, my employees any more.
“This is about democracy in Victoria.
“Someone needs to hold Daniel Andrews and his government to account.”
Mr Cook requested an opportunity to address the council and department’s evidence to the inquiry on 1 September in case “other falsehoods” were made.
A council spokesperson said: “Council vehemently denies what is alleged, and looks forward to being able to refute that allegation when it presents to the Parliamentary Committee next week.”
