The proprietor of the Tak Kee Roast Inn was convicted and fined $1500 for failing to comply with food safety standards and allowing food to be handled in a way that made it unsuitable for sale.

The court heard a health inspector was on the balcony of the Dickson Backpackers when she noticed meat defrosting and vegetables being prepared in a car park behind the Woolley Street restaurant on February 26, 2009.

The food was unattended on a chopping board, exposed to the weather and attracting wild birds, so she took photographs and phoned her superior, who sent another staff member to help her investigate.

When the pair went inside, they noted that the kitchen walls, floors and ceiling were dirty and that there was grease, decaying food and rubbish throughout the premises. They seized a large wooden chopping block, rusty knife and defrosting and cooked meat on the grounds that it posed an immediate health risk.

Photographs tendered to the court showed liquid seeping from boxes of meat in the outdoor car park, walls spattered with a brown substance and floor tiles caked in grease, pieces of bone and eggshell.

The health inspectors also found a tub of meat on the floor under a bench, a grease-covered cooker and barbecued ducks hanging against a door near frayed, dirty cloths.

Kin Wah Wong, 57, was convicted of permitting food to be handled in unclean premises and in the car park, and allowing food to be prepared on a dirty chopping block using a rusty knife. He was also convicted of permitting meat to be defrosted and food prepared in the car park without adequate protection from contamination, and of permitting his restaurant to accumulate waste, dirt and grease.

Special Magistrate Ken Cush convicted and fined Wong $500 on each of the three charges.