Intense feud escalates in ritzy suburb as cops become involved after customer complains about shocking discovery in a block of cheese
A bitter feud has erupted in a ritzy beachside suburb after a customer complained to the owner of a cheese company about finding a metal bolt in her purchase.
Julia Sakr said she had bought a Maffra Cheese block at her local supermarket Fruitlologist in Bondi, in Sydney 's eastern suburbs.
'I had a hankering for cheddar cheese and crackers and I saw this gourmet piece of cheese,' the pregnant mother said in a TikTok video shared on Saturday.
Ms Sakr, who runs pet bed company Barney Bed, said when she arrived home she opened the cheese and discovered a little, metal nut inside of it.
'I broke up the top piece, and I saw on the backside of it a bolt. Like a metal bolt, you know, like a tool,' she said.
'This small block of cheese was $10 and it was at night time, so I wasn't going to go back to the Fruitologist to get it exchanged or get my money back,' Ms Sakr said.
Ms Sakr disposed of the entire block, not wanting to eat the cheese in case the rest was contaminated.
'The very next morning we were going to Cairns for a week and I only just got back yesterday, so I was like, "OK, I'll just email the company and let them know",' she said.
'Number one, so they know it's obviously an issue having a bolt in their cheese, and number two I just paid $10 for a small block of cheese I didn't get to enjoy.'
'So I said, "Hi there, I purchased your cheese from the Fruitologist in Bondi this evening and I found a bolt in there. I'm glad I spotted it before chewing on some cheese and crackers. How do I get a refund on this?"'
She said she received a response in the morning from the director who thanked her for reporting the incident.
Ms Sakr claimed the director asked for pictures of the batch number on the back label so she could investigate the incident.
'I was like, "how? I've already thrown it away," which I did, and my cleaners come once a week, so by the time I get back from Cairns, it's not gonna be there,' she said.
'And to be honest, I was a bit p***ed off because like customers telling you that they found a bolt in your cheese.
'I decided to get petty because I was like I'm not (going to) let this woman keep my $10 if that's the attitude she's gonna have.'
Then Ms Sakr said the director informed her the production line don't use nuts like the one in her photo, and all the cheeses pass through a metal detector.
'I responded with, "Are you seriously denying this? Why on earth would I contact you if this didn't happen?".
Ms Sakr had hoped the saga could have been 'nipped in the bud'.
Instead, she said she received an email, warning her the director would be contacting the police.
'Today I get a response from her saying, "I will be making a police report",' she said.
Ms Sakr shared a shot of the email apparently originating from Maffra master cheesemaker Ferial Zekiman.
'I will be making a police report. Kind Regards, Ferial Zekiman,' the email read.
It remains unclear whether the police report was intended to be made against Ms Sakr, or about the metal bolt that had been found in the cheese.
Daily Mail Australia contacted Maffra Cheese for comment.
Social media users agreed Ms Sakr had received less-than-satisfactory treatment over the complaint.
'Wow that is incredibly bad customer service,' one said.
'Be petty queen,' another said.
Others took the cheesemaker's side.
'The reason they asked for the batch and best before date is so they could investigate the production batch and issue a public food recall,' one wrote.
'Her initial response was perfectly acceptable and to industry standard.'
'The way I read their first reply email was that they wanted the batch number to make sure none others were contaminated, potentially pulling all others off shelves from that batch,' another agreed.
'And most of these places do use metal detectors due to the machinery used in production.'
Some viewers, however, said the situation could have been handled better by both parties.
'Her initial response was valid, all companies ask for bb dates etc after a complaint, but the rest of her interaction is absolutely ridiculous!' one wrote.
'She could have just explained why she was requesting that info rather than what she did.'
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Darren says he believes his brother would not have accepted mental health treatment and probably would have found a way to take his life, even if the bars had been removed. But what he can't abide is the state government's failure to act on repeated warnings to remove the obvious hanging points, including after his brother's death. 'They're more or less handing them the rope,' he says. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at
The Guardian
an hour ago
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‘Astounding' negligence revealed: governments turn blind eye to staggering prison death toll
Warning: this story contains descriptions of self-harm and some readers might find it distressing. A staggering 57 Australians have killed themselves in the past two decades using hanging points in prisons that authorities knew about but failed to remove, a Guardian investigation has found. In a five-month review of 248 hanging deaths in Australian jails, Guardian Australia identified 19 correctional facilities where inmates died after governments and authorities failed to remove known ligature points within cells. In many cases, this was despite repeated and urgent warnings from coroners to do so. Families of the dead, former state coroners, justice reform experts and former federal ministers have expressed their shock at the 'astounding' failures of successive state governments to fulfil promises made after the royal commission into Aboriginal deaths in custody more than 30 years ago to remove such hanging points. Guardian Australia has spent five months investigating the deadly toll of Australia's inaction to remove hanging points from its jails, a key recommendation of the 1991 royal commission into Aboriginal deaths in custody. The main finding – that 57 inmates died using known ligature points that had not been removed – was made possible by an exhaustive examination of coronial records relating to 248 hanging deaths spanning more than 20 years. Reporters combed through large volumes of coronial records looking for instances where a hanging point had been used repeatedly in the same jail. They counted any death that occurred after prison authorities were made aware of that particular hanging point. Warnings were made via a prior suicide or suicide attempt, advice from their own staff or recommendations from coroners and other independent bodies. Guardian Australia also logged how many of the 57 inmates were deemed at risk of self-harm or had attempted suicide before they were sent into cells with known hanging points. In adherence with best practice in reporting on this topic, Guardian Australia has avoided detailed descriptions of suicide. In some instances, so that the full ramifications of coronial recommendations can be understood, we have made the decision to identify types and locations of ligature points. We have done this only in instances where we feel the public interest in this information being available to readers is high. The worst offender was Queensland's Arthur Gorrie correctional centre, where 10 prisoners killed themselves using the same type of ligature point – exposed bars that authorities knew about but failed to remove. The hangings continued until 2020 despite coronial warnings as early as 2007 that the state government 'immediately make available sufficient funding to enable the removal of the exposed bars'. The same coroner had told authorities the bars 'could easily be covered with mesh' following an earlier death. The same failure was repeated across the state, at Townsville correctional centre, where two inmates were able to hang themselves from known ligature points, and at Ipswich's Borallon correctional centre, where two others died in an almost identical way. The problem is not isolated to Queensland. At the Darwin correctional centre cells were equipped with overhead fixtures that could bear body weight, creating what coroners called a 'classic' hanging point. They were used in two deaths within two years of the prison's opening in 2014 and were not completely removed until 2020. Sign up for Guardian Australia's breaking news email In South Australia the Guardian found 14 deaths from hanging points that were known but not removed, including at the Adelaide remand centre. At least five prisoners have hanged themselves from fixtures at Hakea prison in Western Australia, despite warnings to the state government as early as 2008 it should address all obvious ligature points. Sydney's Long Bay correctional complex recorded five hangings from bars between 2000 and 2017, despite a warning in 2009 that the 'obvious' hanging points had to be removed. Across New South Wales the Guardian identified 20 deaths from hanging points known to authorities but not removed, including at Goulburn, Parklea, Bathurst and Cessnock prisons. Sign up to Breaking News Australia Get the most important news as it breaks after newsletter promotion Guardian Australia asked every state government what has been done to address the problem. You can read their responses in full here. The revelations have prompted renewed calls for action from victims' families. Cheryl Ellis lost her son, Gavin, to suicide in the Darcy unit of the metropolitan remand and reception centre in Sydney's Silverwater prison complex in 2017. The 31-year-old had a longstanding psychotic illness and was a known suicide risk. In his first three days in custody he tried to hang himself twice but was not seen by a mental health clinician for eight days and was not reviewed by a psychiatrist for six weeks. He was sent to a cell with a hanging point – a set of window bars. Another inmate had died by hanging from window bars in the Darcy unit two years earlier. The bars remained in the unit cells after Gavin's death and were used in a third suicide in 2020. The inquest into Gavin's death recommended that all obvious hanging points be removed but delays in the coronial system meant that recommendation did not come until two years after the third suicide. The NSW government would not say whether the bars have now been removed. Cheryl says her son should never have been sent to that cell. She also says the hanging points should not have been allowed to remain in the Darcy unit cells after Gavin's death. 'The system does not have capital punishment yet it leaves hanging points for inmates to use,' she said. Official data shows suicide by hanging remains the most common cause of self-inflicted death in custody. Considerable progress was made to reduce the rate of hanging deaths in the late 1990s and early 2000s. That progress has stalled since 2008, the data shows. The continued presence of known ligature points is just one factor contributing to hanging deaths. The 248 deaths investigated by the Guardian often involve multiple failings, including breakdowns in psychiatric assessments and a failure to provide proper mental health care, the lack of suitable beds in secure mental health facilities, the absence of proper observation regimes and mistakes in information sharing and cell placement. Deaths in custody continue to disproportionately affect Indigenous Australians, who remain vastly overrepresented in prison populations. Seven Indigenous Australians hanged themselves in 2023-24, a number not recorded since 2000-01. Robert Tickner, the former Labor federal Indigenous affairs minister, led the Australian government's response to the 1991 royal commission into Aboriginal deaths in custody. He helped to secure the agreement of state and territory governments to remove hanging points from their prisons, something he describes as a 'no brainer'. 'There can be no excuses for the failure to act,' he said. 'My very strong view is that the ultimate buck stops with the commissioners of corrections and governments.' Michael Barnes, a former state coroner in Queensland and New South Wales, said the number of deaths from known ligature points was 'astounding'. 'It's hard to think that it's anything other than a lack of commitment that can explain the continuing high rate.' In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Indigenous Australians can call 13YARN on 13 92 76 for information and crisis support. Other international helplines can be found at
