Brits’ Bone-In Beef
Ban Dealt A Setback

SELKIRK, Scotland —(AP)— The legality of a British government ban on beef on the bone sales was cast into doubt Tuesday after a Scottish court threw out the first prosecution of a man accused of serving a banned cut.

Sheriff James Paterson said the law being used to prosecute hotelier Jim Sutherland was "defective" and "manifestly absurd."

Sutherland, 44, held a high-profile "Prohibition Dinner" for farmers where he served roasted beef ribs to 180 people at a hotel in southern Scotland on Dec. 22, five days after the ban became law.

The government announced the prohibition on T-bone steaks and rib cuts earlier in December, after scientists said consumers risked a small chance of catching the brain-wasting illness, bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or mad cow disease, from beef cooked on the bone.

The chances were so slight, however, that many consumers ignored the ban, and newspapers ridiculed the government.

Speaking in Selkirk court, 35 miles southeast of Edinburgh, the sheriff said the law was badly drafted, and it implied that anyone cooling beef prior to shipping or cooking could technically be breaking the law.

Farmers' groups said the sheriff's ruling represented a victory for common sense. Jack Cunningham, minister for agriculture, said that the government would study the implications of the case, but added that the ban on serving beef on the bone remained.

"The requirements of these regulations are essential for the protection of public health," Cunningham said in a statement.