AN EYNESBURY woman was left “feeling sick” after �preparing to tuck into a Tesco baguette – only to find a blood-stained plaster stuck to it.

Clare Springett bought the 40p baguette from the bakery at the Tesco store in St Neots, and was preparing her lunch when she spotted the blue plaster baked into the crust.

When she peeled it off she saw the inside of the plaster was stained with blood.

“Thank God I hadn’t started eating it,” said Miss Springett, 27. “If I hadn’t turned it over I could have started eating it with the plaster attached.

“But it was quite hard to miss. The plaster had been baked and melted into the bottom of the bread.

“I peeled it off and it was all bloody inside – it made me feel quite sick. It was disgusting.”

Miss Springett, a nurse at Hinchingbrooke Hospital, in Huntingdon, had bought two of the cheese batons on Saturday, October 22, and had eaten one that day.

When she discovered the plaster on the second baguette, she took it back to the Barford Road store immediately.

“I spoke to a manager, who apologised and said she would get head office to call me the next day.

“They offered me another cheese baguette but I said I was all right.”

Miss Springett, of Knaresborough Court, Eynesbury, said she was told that blue plasters were used because they were eye-catching – and to ensure accidents like hers did not happen.

“But the baguette had obviously been past a few people,” she said. “It had been baked in the oven, wrapped up, and stacked on the shelf. And it wasn’t difficult to see – it was obvious.”

Miss Springett and her partner Russell Davies, 26, were refunded the 40p for the baguette and given a �10 voucher but, nearly three weeks after the incident, Miss Springett says they have yet to hear from Tesco head office.

The delay in issuing a full apology and rectifying the situation has angered her even more.

“I appreciate that things go wrong and that people make mistakes – that’s not the issue,” she said. “You would expect a big company like Tesco to apologise properly and to make sure that things have been put right.”

“I live just round the corner from Tesco, but I won’t be going back for a while, and I certainly won’t be buying a baguette again.”

A spokesman for Tesco said Miss Springett had been given a full refund and offered a bunch of flowers by way of apology. She said: “The incident will be fully investigated and we will be speaking to our suppliers to find out what happened.”