Hygiene inspectors found more on the menu than just kebabs when they followed a trail of mouse droppings through the kitchen and over the salad of a takeaway in Leyton.

Last year, ‘Kebabish Original’ located at 692 High Road, Leyton was visited by council officers.

Mouse excrement was seen on salad in the cold store, throughout the cellar and kitchen, and on floors, food containers and shelving.

The poor standard of cleaning had left floor and wall surfaces in the kitchen coated with grease and dirt and food containers and utensils were encrusted with old food.

It was also discovered that a rusty sieve was the means by which staff fished lettuce out of a filthy plastic container in the cold store containing cut lettuce floating in brown water.

Cllr Clyde Loakes, deputy leader and cabinet member for the environment, called it ‘revolting’.

He said: “It was quite the most revolting conditions to be preparing and serving food in.

“Some of the practices just make you wonder what the people working at this takeaway were thinking. The fact that vermin were running around and leaving faeces on food is just appalling.”

The premises was also found to be in a poor state of repair, with a hole in the kitchen ceiling, missing wall tiles and damaged plasterwork.

Documents which are required to demonstrate effective food safety measures were also found not to be in use.

On September 19 at Thames Magistrates' Court the business was fined £15,000.

Following a guilty plea, Kenlar Ltd – the company which owned the business at the time – was fined £6,000 (£1,000 per offence).

Director Mazhar Hussain and Shareholder Nadeem Ahmed were each fined £1,000 for the pest offence and £500 each for five other offences and ordered to pay costs of £2,361 to the council.

Cllr Loakes added: “This appalling case is enough to make anyone think twice about putting their trust in a takeaway.

“It demonstrates that in Waltham Forest we will not sit back and allow our residents to be maltreated in this way. We will bring the full force of the law to bear, and that means very real consequences with significant financial penalties."