A YOUNG girl is to get £2,000 compensation because she was rushed to hospital with an allergic reaction to a school pudding.

Maizy Harman now refuses to have school meals because, she says, “they would make her die”, said Craig Hassall, prosecuting at York Crown Court.

Though there was a system in place at Woodthorpe School to ensure before each meal that children with allergies were only given safe food, it didn’t include dessert, he said.

After the case, Maizy’s mother Caroline Harman called on caterers to “double check and triple check” the food they give to people with allergies.

“If there is any doubt, just don’t give it,” she said.

“The case was never about the money, it was about awareness. People just don’t take allergies seriously enough.”

Click here to read Caroline's allergy call to the caterers after the court case

Maizy was in the reception class when she ate the upside down pineapple pudding in September 2018.

She had only been at the school for 16 days.

When she was three, she had had had a life-threatening reaction to food at a family wedding.

North Yorkshire County Council, which provides meals at Woodthorpe and 271 other schools, pleaded guilty to failure to provide safe food.

It was fined £4,000 and ordered to pay £14,161.87 prosecution costs and the £2,000 compensation to Maizy.

Mr Hassall said Maizy’s parents spoke to school staff and to the school cook about what she could and couldn’t eat before she started having school meals.

It was decided she would only have fruit or flapjacks for dessert.

The cook decided to deal with Maizy’s food herself and didn’t write the information given at the meeting down, said the barrister.

She was not at work when Maizy’s class teacher spotted that the little girl was given the upside down pineapple pudding and queried it with the kitchen staff.

After three staff were asked, including the stand-in cook, if it was okay, Maizy was allowed to have it.

The pudding recipe included 20 eggs - and Maizy is allergic to eggs.

The kitchen staff did made sure she didn’t have custard with it - she is also allergic to milk.

Mr Hassall said after eating the pudding, Maizy struggled for breath, turned red and was covered with an itchy rash. She was rushed to hospital and released later the same day after being given some anti-histamines.

The Recorder of York, Judge Sean Morris, said Maizy’s reaction after the school could have been worse.

For the county council, Robert Stevenson said it had 30 years’ experience of providing school meals and provided millions each year. This was the first time it had had an incident.

City of York Council, which prosecuted the county council, had given its catering service at Woodthorpe five stars in the food hygiene rating when it inspected six months before the pudding incident, including how the caterers handled allergens and had not raised any concerns. The giving of the pudding had been a simple mistake, he said, and disputed the prosecution’s claims there was a systematic failing in the catering at the school.