Roadmap – to phase out ‘animal testing’ – is launched
We are pleased to announce we have published our ‘Roadmap to phase out animal testing’.
Posted 03 Dec 2024
Posted on the 28th July 2011
Cigarettes stubbed out on pigs’ faces; one animal punched in the head; another goaded in the face; regular blows and kicks; seriously injured pigs forced to drag themselves to slaughter… All these abuses in one UK slaughterhouse and Defra still won’t prosecute.
Animal Aid has released footage shot secretly at Elmkirk Ltd (Cheale Meats), an Essex-based, family-run slaughterhouse that kills up to 6,000 pigs a week and whose website proclaims: ‘Be proud of higher welfare, buy British pork.’
The film – which was recorded on a number of secretly installed cameras over a period of four days – shows three different workers stubbing their cigarettes out on the faces of pigs, while one of the men landed a violent punch on the face of a pig who was walking by.
In addition, three seriously injured pigs were forced to crawl from the lairage, through the race and into the stun pen. Animal Aid’s cameras followed them as they were pushed, dragged by their ears and kicked along. Such treatment breaches the welfare laws multiple times.*
Animal Aid filmed many examples of incompetence. Pigs are stunned using electrified tongs, which should span their brains and render them immediately insensible. However, three of the four workers filmed stunning pigs showed a callous indifference to the suffering of the animals, many of whom were not stunned correctly. Some were subjected to painful electric shocks from the tongs, and fell to the ground screaming.
It is legal to use electric goads on the muscles of the hindquarters of pigs, but only for brief periods and only when there is space ahead of the animal in which to move. At Cheale Meats, the electric goad was used in the face of one pig and on the anus of another.
An additional worrying episode showed an apparently dead pig being dragged into the stun pen by a pole in her mouth. She was not stunned but she was shackled, hoisted and had her throat cut on the slaughter line. How this animal died, what she had been suffering from and where her meat ended up remain unknown.
Cheale Meats is the ninth UK slaughterhouse to be secretly filmed by Animal Aid in the past two-and-a-half years. The national campaign group has identified legal breaches in seven of the previous eight – some of them so serious that one slaughterhouse was forced to close down. Cases were built for the prosecution of nine men and four slaughterhouse operators before a change of government brought a change of heart, and all the cases were dropped. Defra, under the coalition government, said that, unlike its Labour predecessor, it could not proceed because the evidence was obtained without the permission of the slaughterhouses. Animal Aid believes that this is a politically motivated excuse and cites the recent Panorama programme, which secretly filmed care home workers without the permission of the owners, and whose film is being used to prosecute.
Animal Aid sent the Cheale Meats evidence to the Food Standards Agency (FSA). This is the body that supplies vets to slaughterhouses and investigates breaches of the welfare and hygiene law before passing the cases to Defra, which is the prosecuting body. The FSA replied on 14 June saying: ‘Defra is not prepared to commence prosecution proceedings where the initial allegation is based on CCTV footage gained without the consent of the relevant Food Business Operator.’
Kate Fowler, Head of Campaigns at Animal Aid says:
‘Since we first began investigating English slaughterhouses, we have been pressing everyone involved – regulators, industry bodies and the government – to act decisively to end the cruelty. At first, they appeared contrite and promised action but now their words ring hollow. If Defra won’t prosecute these flagrant breaches of the law; if the vets can’t or won’t act to stop the cruelties; and if the slaughterhouse owners look the other way, who is there to stop animals from being abused at the most vulnerable time of their lives? It seems that all involved are content to keep quiet and to allow these cruelties to continue. So much for the UK having the best welfare standards in the world!’
* The treatment of the injured pigs breaches the Welfare of Animals (Slaughter or Killing) Regulations in a number of ways:
We are pleased to announce we have published our ‘Roadmap to phase out animal testing’.
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