Mia Shay St Hilaire, a 12-year-old girl, died after suffering a fatal allergic reaction to a milkshake mixed in an unwashed blender at a south London cafe. Inner South London Coroner’s Court heard the inquest into her death, which wrapped up on Thursday, Oct. 8, 2026; the coroner pointed to failures and missed opportunities in how the child’s allergy had been managed.
Angela Bruno, the solicitor for Mia’s family, said concerns about the cafe that served the 12-year-old the contaminated milkshake had been raised before she died.
Bruno joined Mia’s parents on the U.K. talk show “Good Morning Britain,” whose hosts are Susanna Reid and Ed Balls. She claimed an inspection in 2020 found no allergy matrix at the cafe and that inspectors awarded it a five-star rating anyway. An inspection two years later was “missed,” she said.
Bruno said inspections after Mia’s death in 2023 turned up the same gaps. “Still no matrix, no allergy signs, other issues are raised with regard to contamination,” she said.
Bruno also alleged that an inspection planned for September 2026 was not carried out. The Food Standards Agency’s website lists the cafe’s most recent five-star hygiene rating as 2024.
What the Inquest Found
Assistant coroner Briony Ballard concluded the inquest at Inner South London Coroner’s Court on Thursday, Oct. 8, 2026, and published a narrative conclusion. She found failures and missed opportunities in the management of the child’s allergy.
Mia lived in Sydenham, southeast London, and had a hazelnut allergy. She was out with her aunt and sister in August 2023 when she ordered a Twix milkshake at the Pop Inn Cafe on Southwark Park Road, Bermondsey.
Ballard said Mia drank part of a Twix milkshake that had been “cross-contaminated with hazelnut residue from a Kinder Bueno milkshake previously prepared in the same unwashed blender.”
The coroner found that anaphylaxis came on rapidly and that Mia collapsed at her aunt’s home. She received extensive emergency treatment and then intensive care at the Evelina London Children’s Hospital, where she later died.
Closed-circuit television footage showed that Baris Yucel, the Pop Inn Cafe’s food business operator, did not clean the blender before preparing the girl’s drink. A Prevention of Future Deaths report will go to the Food Standards Agency, Southwark Council and the cafe, Ballard said.
Guilty Plea and £18,000 Fine
Long before the inquest, the criminal case had already ended. Southwark Council brought six food safety offenses against Yucel, then 47, and he pleaded guilty to all of them at Croydon Magistrates’ Court on Jan. 24, 2025. The offenses included failing to make allergen advice available or visible to customers, failing to manage allergen contamination during food production, and serving food with an allergenic ingredient that was not meant to be in it.
The court fined him £18,000 and imposed a 100-hour community order. Yucel is no longer the owner or operator of the Pop Inn Cafe.
Hazelnuts and almonds were present in the drink, the council said it believed at the time. Natasha Ennin, a Southwark councilor, said in January 2025 that basic food safety rules, had the operator followed them, might have averted the death, and she added that officers would keep working with local businesses so the rules are followed across the borough. An enforcement officer had visited the cafe several times to check that procedures designed to prevent a similar incident were being maintained, according to the council.
The judge described Yucel as a man of previous good character with no previous incidents reported against him in 22 years, a lawyer for him said. The lawyer said Yucel pleaded guilty at the first opportunity, took immediate steps to educate himself in September and October 2023, and thinks of Mia and her family every day.
Mia’s parents said after the sentencing in January 2025 that the conviction and fine would, they hoped, show food businesses across the country what happens when food safety is not taken seriously.
Parents Seek Allergy Ratings
Chanel Spence, Mia’s mother, said her daughter knew the milkshake contained nuts after just “two sips.” Spence said Mia had been to the cafe before. “It was a place she had gone a week before,” she said.
Spence said the family was surprised to learn at the hearing that allergy management sits outside the food hygiene rating system. “When you see a five-star rating at a shop, you feel like, you know, you’re safe,” she said.
Spence and Mia’s father, Adrian St Hilaire, want a new mark on the cafe window. The couple argue that hygiene ratings say nothing about allergen handling, and they are seeking a separate, clearly displayed allergy management rating alongside the hygiene score so that allergy sufferers can judge where it is safe to eat.
St Hilaire said of a dedicated allergy rating: “Had that been in place, we’d be looking at a different outcome and a totally different story.”
The parents thanked the coroner and called the investigation careful and thorough. They said they were grateful that their daughter’s voice had been heard, and they believe Mia would still be alive had the local authority made sure the cafe understood and carried out its allergy responsibilities. In a statement, they said: “Mia was, and is, deeply loved and she will never be forgotten.”
Michelle Victor, the partner who leads the food safety team at law firm Leigh Day, which represents the family, said the way the food service industry understands, manages and monitors food allergies had been thrown into serious doubt by the evidence. Victor said the family wants the Food Standards Agency and other authorities to look again at the framework governing allergy safety, with substantive reform on the table.
“People have the right to know exactly what is in their food and drink,” said Rebecca Sudworth, director of food policy at the Food Standards Agency, who added that “it is a business’s legal duty to provide accurate allergen information.” The agency, she said, had recently put out new allergen guidance for businesses that covers cross-contact and offers free allergy training.
Tanya Ednan-Laperouse, the founder of Natasha’s Foundation, said awareness, understanding and regulation of food allergies all still have a long way to go, as the inquest had demonstrated. She said allergies are not a preference or a choice but a serious and unpredictable medical condition. Her daughter, Natasha, died at 15 after an allergic reaction to sesame in a Pret baguette.
