Market Rasen farmer accused of contaminating baby food and blackmailing Tesco for £1.5m was ‘inspired by a documentary’, court hears

Undated handout photo issued by Hertfordshire Constabulary of Nigel Wright, 45, in a Tesco store in Lockerbie where he is accused of planting a jar of Heinz baby food laced with fragments of a craft knife as part of a plot to blackmail the supermarket chain for ??1.4 million in bitcoin. A mother "felt sick" when she realised she had been millimetres away from feeding her 10-month-old son part of the craft knife allegedly planted in the jar, a court has heard. EMN-200814-133422001

Two mothers spotted tiny shards while feeding their infants after Nigel Wright, 45, of Caistor Road, launched his two-year campaign of threats in the spring of 2018, jurors heard.

The married father-of-two allegedly threatened to inject tins of food with salmonella and home-made chemicals unless the supermarket giant sent him £1.5m worth of Bitcoin.

Giving evidence at the Old Bailey, he claimed he had sent menacing letters and emails to the company while under duress from travellers who came to his farm and attacked him.

He told jurors the group of unknown men had demanded a £500,000 ransom from him and he was ‘desperate’ to obtain the money after they threatened to kill his children and rape his wife.

The farmer claimed that he had been ambushed by a man he believed to be connected to the travellers on a number of occasions pressuring him to find the enormous sum.

Asked today (Monday) why he then sent a message to Tesco saying he was in ‘no hurry,’ Wright said: ‘Because I didn’t think it was suitable to say I’m desperate for this money, I need it now.’

Prosecutor Julian Christopher, QC, said: ‘“We are in no hurry.” Surely you were in an extreme hurry. Why did you feel sufficiently relaxed to say that?

‘You can’t explain why you are seen to be quite relaxed in the letter?’

‘I couldn’t put that I was desperate for the money and I needed it straight away,’ he replied.

Wright later threatened to leak a story to the ‘national media’ about contaminated jars on Tesco’s shelves unless they sent him a Bitcoin transfer by 15 June last year.

He claimed that despite having planted a contaminated tin of baby food in a branch in Lockerbie, he failed to contact the press because he did not want to ‘hurt’ Tesco.

Mr Christopher said: ‘You never did contact the national media. Why?’

Wright replied: ‘No because I didn’t want to. This was never about hurting Tesco.’

Asked why he was prepared to take the more ‘extreme’ measure of placing the spiked tin, Wright said: ‘I didn’t want to hurt the store in that way… I did not want it to become public.

‘It would hurt the reputation of the company.’

The farmer claimed he found inspiration for his threats on television and through Google searches, including claims that he had used a dremel drill to inject contaminants into jars.

‘What made you come up with that particular threat [of using a dremel drill]?’ Mr Christopher asked.

Wright replied: ‘It was something I had seen on television in a documentary.

‘It was an American documentary.’

Mr Christopher asked: ‘What made you come up with prussic acid as a threat?’

Wright replied: ‘I don’t know, a Google search.’

Wright denies two counts of contaminating goods and four counts of blackmail.

The trial continues.