Diesel found in energy drink

THERE were fears that someone was contaminating energy drinks in Lurgan in 2000.

The scare hit the headlines after someone bought a drink at a local filling station and after drinking from it had to be taken to Craigavon Area Hospital.

The bottle was passed on to the council’s environmental services department.

An examination noted that the contamination smelt like diesel and had a reddish tinge. The date code and lot code had been erased from the bottle.

Officials went to the filling station, ordered that all other Lucozade bottles be held and took away samples for analysis.

Samples of red diesel were taken from the filling station.

Tests on other bottles of Lucozade were found to be satisfactory.

The bottle which was drunk from consisted entirely of mineral hydrocarbon having the characteristics of diesel.

It was found that the diesel in the bottle did not match diesel from the filling station.

It was the opinion of the council that the drink had been tampered with maliciously by ‘persons unknown’ and the owner of the filling station would not have been aware of the contamination.