Lidl shopper horrified after choking on a shard of broken GLASS that was 'in a tin of baked beans'
Carter Sullivan
Published Mar 23, 2026
A DISABLED Lidl shopper was left horrified after choking on a shard of broken glass that was "in a tin of baked beans".
Stephen McLury, who has a feeding tube, began coughing and choking soon after tucking into his beans dinner.
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He had been served the meal by pal Shirley Robertson, who says she was stunned when the 60-year-old spat out a lump of glass.
Shirley claims the glass could only have come from the can of Lidl-bought baked beans she had opened for his tea.
The 46-year-old says she shudders to think of the harm it could have done Stephen if he had swallowed and it became stuck or damaged his insides.
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"I was absolutely mortified," she said.
Shirley, from Gateshead, makes a meal each day for her disabled neighbour Stephen, who lives across the road.
The Good Samaritan, who herself has a disability, said he arrived as usual for this tea on Thursday and she opened a tin of Campo Largo beans she bought from the Swalwell branch of Lidl just before it closed for its re-fit.
She said: "He just fancied something simple and I made him egg, chips with beans.
“He took a mouthful of beans and he coughed. The he coughed out this lump of glass - he nearly choked on it.
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“The only thing it could have come from is the beans.
“I was absolutely mortified to think it could have come out of something I cooked for him.
“He has a tube in his stomach to give his medication and if the glass had gone down it could have done anything to his stomach.”
Shirley added: "It put him off the rest of his tea; he didn’t eat the rest of it."
Stephen's first thought, she said, was the chunk of glass may have come off a glass cooking dish.
"But there was no glass around," she said. "I didn't use anything glass while I was cooking and I heated up the beans in a cereal bowl.
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“It looked like a piece of the bottom of a paste jar, with a bit of a ridge around. It was about an inch by a quarter-of-an-inch.”
Shirley emailed the customer services department of Lidl the following morning and is awaiting a reply.
A Lidl spokeswoman apologised and said a full investigation will take place.
She added: “We were very sorry to hear of this matter and take customer feedback of this nature very seriously.
“Our Quality Assurance team will be carrying out a full investigation once all the required information has been received.”
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