Father Shocked To See What’s In The Back Of SUV (Photos)

An English father was shocked when he realized what he thought were rolls of carpet in the back of a vehicle turned out to be something else entirely.

Daniel Armstrong was walking with his 3-year-old son in Crawley, West Sussex, when he saw the an SUV with its trunk open, revealing what appeared to be rolls of carpet, reports the Daily Mail. As he got closer, he realized what the rolls actually were: meat.

The rolls of doner kebab meat were being transported in the back of a “sweaty” vehicle on a hot summer day for Troy BBQ restaurant. The restaurant admitted to transporting the meat in an unconventional manner, but said it was only in the car for “minutes” and that each roll was wrapped in plastic wrap.

Armstrong feels that what he witnessed could be a real health concern for those who eat at the restaurant, including himself.

“I thought my child could have caught something; it did go through my head,” Armstrong said. “It’s absolutely shocking. Not just for me but the hundreds of thousands of people who probably eat there every week. The meat definitely would have been sweaty in the heat of the car. It would have been a hot in there.”

He added, “When I ate there I was told I was eating from a restaurant that had five stars from food hygiene. To think that’s what they have been doing all along — the whole thing is enough to turn your stomach.”

Armstrong knew that something “didn’t look right” when he saw employees of the restaurant unloading the meat, but he chose not to intervene because he had his son with him.’

“We were walking down Peglar Way and I caught them unloading the kebabs from the back of the car — I thought that’s definitely not the way you transport it,” Armstrong said. “The men were carrying one each into the back of the restaurant — the only protection they had was gloves. They told me it was frozen at the time but I couldn’t tell if it was frozen or not. They were just stood there 10 feet away from me loading the back of the 4 x 4 with those kebabs. Obviously my understanding is that they need to be transported in a freezer and obviously that wasn’t the case.”

The manager of Troy BBQ, Must Eryilmaz, said the meat had only been moved about 100 yards because the restaurant’s freezer was broken, according to The Sun.

“Nothing much happened. A freezer was broken and it was only one hundred yards away from my other shop to this shop,” Eryilmaz said. “It was from number 34 to number 98 on the same street. It went from a minus 18 degrees freezer to another minus 18 degrees freezer, no more than two or three minutes out of the freezer. I have worked in Crawley for 30 years and I have had a good reputation in this town. Health and safety people came and they said there’s nothing wrong with what we do.”

A city representative issued a statement on the incident.

“The sighting was reported by several members of the Crawley community, who made Environmental Health aware of the situation,” the statement reads. “Environmental Health is liaising with the business concerned.”

Sources: Daily Mail, The Sun / Photo credit: Shoestring/Wikimedia Commons, Mercury Press & Media via Daily Mail