by Clare Druce
In the same year, 2002, the opening paragraph in Veterinary Record of an article about lameness in sheep drew attention to the problem thus: ‘The issue of [sheep] welfare is becoming increasingly important in UK farming, particularly as the contemporary economic difficulties in the livestock industries have led to concerns that, owing to their marginal value, fewer diseased sheep may be receiving veterinary attention’. The results of a survey sent to sheep farmers seemed to suggest that the downturn in their economic fortunes made no difference to the amount of veterinary care received by their sheep. However, the authors of the VR article had their suspicions: ‘This evidence must be considered in the light of the possibility that many farmers may have provided responses that they perceived to be acceptable or desirable to the administrators of the survey, or to the general public…it appears that, despite acknowledgement by farmers of the importance of welfare issues relating to ovine lameness and other locomotor disorders of sheep, there remains great potential for the occurrence of preventable or incorrectly treated cases among sheep in the study area.’(4).
The study area had been the Scottish Borders and it so happened that Duncan and I had a holiday in that very region, shortly after Chickens’ Lib’s new sheep leaflet saw the light of day. While there, we noted several flocks of sheep exhibiting lameness and on return reported each one to the Scottish Executive’s Environment and Rural Affairs Department. I received a rather chilly letter from a Divisional Veterinary Manager in response to mine: every location I’d reported had been tracked down and the owners identified, he said. He ended his letter by stating the obvious: that any advice given would be based on farm animal legislation, or recommendations in the codes. It all read like a put-down. However, a much more encouraging reaction came via a telephone conversation I had with a different vet from the same department. He’d received our leaflet and considered we were ‘doing an excellent job’.
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Bites from insects and infestation with mites can cause acute itching and distress to sheep and almost total wool loss, a condition illustrated on our leaflet. Now we were to read that, distressed by the suffering he witnessed, John Williamson, a farmer all his working life, had blown the whistle on the appalling conditions among sheep in his area. Consequently the Highland News published some of the photographs he’d taken showing emaciated sheep, their skin raw and almost devoid of fleece, left to die and rot in fields (5). Mr Williamson accused government vets and the Scottish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals of turning a blind eye to the suffering of sheep. His revelations lead to the conviction of a young farmer, who was jailed for three months.
But sheep don’t only suffer in the uplands of Scotland or Wales. Hillside Animal Sanctuary in East Anglia – where it’s largely flat and often dry – has found evidence of appalling examples of foot rot so advanced that animals’ feet were virtually worn away (6).
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One of the outings on offer during the 1993 Poultry Welfare Symposium in Edinburgh (described earlier) was a visit to a deer farm; Irene and I decided to join that trip, thinking we were bound to learn something useful.
We’d heard that deer are shot while grazing in their fields – surely infinitely preferable to death in a slaughterhouse – and that the other deer seem not to be alarmed and in fact they scarcely look up as their companions thud to the ground. This smacked of a general lack of sensitivity on the part of deer, a theory soon to be discounted.
Surprisingly, the owners of the farm had chosen this of all days, with a coach load of visitors expected, to separate the mothers from their young. The scene was harrowing, as the mother deer crashed against the doors of their pens, desperate to get to their young. Then we knew for certain that deer are as sensitive as other species, at least when it comes to having their offspring snatched from them.
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It was at around this time, when Chickens’ Lib had recently embraced other farmed animals, that we met Wendy Valentine, who went on to found Hillside Animal Sanctuary. At Hillside animals are allowed to live out their days in comfort, sheltered from the harsh conditions often meted out to ‘food animals’.
But Hillside is a campaigning sanctuary too. It investigates and publicises abuses to animals as well as giving them shelter – and it came into being as a direct result of yet another taste of MAFF’s all too familiar stance.
In fact, the story of how Hillside began is deeply disturbing.
Hillside Animal Sanctuary
In 1994 I received a phone call from Wendy Valentine. She introduced herself as the founder of Redwings Horse Sanctuary and explained she was ringing for advice about a shocking discovery she’d just made. She and a friend over from America had been out walking in the countryside near Norwich when they’d come upon six low, windowless buildings. The door at the end of the nearest one stood open and the two women had ventured nearer, curious to see what was inside.
The scene they came upon was to change Wendy’s life. She described to me the cages jam-packed with hens, live birds standing on long-dead ones, forced to lay their ‘farm fresh’ eggs against decomposing bodies trodden almost flat, barely recognisable as hens.
In the belief that they were doing the right thing, indeed the obvious thing, the two friends hurried back to Wendy’s house and quickly returned with cameras. Surely the authorities would want evidence of these appalling conditions? This ‘farm’ must be exposed and closed down without delay!
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Now, armed with excellent images, Wendy was unsure just where to turn for help. It happened that her American friend knew about Chickens’ Lib and suggested that Wendy get in touch.
We advised Wendy to phone the local Ministry of Agriculture (MAFF) offices, in Bury St Edmunds. This was the correct course of action: their vets had powers of entry and it was MAFF’s job to deal with farmers acting illegally. I tried to sound positive but felt little optimism, more a sinking feeling that we were about to come up against that old brick wall.
I offered to phone MAFF too, hoping that Chickens’ Lib’s input just might strengthen Wendy’s case. Though far from popular with MAFF we did have a reputation for knowing our facts, and the law. Although we’d not seen these premises, it was agreed Hillside and Chickens’ Lib would try a two-pronged approach. Quite early in the morning I spoke to the duty vet, a woman, expressing our concern. She sounded genuinely shocked by what Wendy had told her, now reinforced by me, and promised that she would inspect the premises that same day.
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This is where I should, by rights, be able to say ‘Imagine my astonishment when…’ but I wasn’t astonished, for what happened next was to follow a familiar pattern. When I phoned in the afternoon, the same woman vet spoke to me but by then she seemed like a different person. Yes, she said, she’d been to the battery in question and found no welfare problems.
And yet, while insisting there was no evidence of suffering, she’d sounded upset. In fact, I was convinced she was fighting back tears; certainly she was nothing like the concerned, professional woman of only a few hours ago. I could only conclude she’d been silenced by her superiors, and that Wendy Valentine and Chickens’ Lib were together witnessing a cover-up of a most serious kind.
Innocent at that stage of the ways of officialdom, Wendy had approached MAFF expecting help and support. She’d assumed farmed animals would be protected and that rapid action would be taken to prevent further cruelty. But within a day Wendy was to join the ranks of the bitterly disappointed – those who ‘do the right thing’ only to discover that farmers acting illegally are spared prosecution time and time again, shielded by the very department responsible for drawing up the animal protection laws. Once again, we were to confront officials caught in the trap of their government department’s own making.
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From this point I’ll let Wendy take up the story, as she told it in her first newsletter about factory farmed animals, written a few months later: ‘Then, following what I believed to be the correct
procedure, I went, accompanied by our vet [Redwings’ vet] to report the farm to the Norwich Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (MAFF). Initially they seemed to be very concerned and promised to visit the site (of which they had not previously been aware) that morning. They telephoned me later in the day with a completely different attitude saying that they had found nothing at the site which contravened the Welfare of Battery Hens Regulations 1987. I just could not believe what I was hearing…I feel it is an extremely frightening situation if MAFF, the body who police the welfare of farm animals and also the food for human consumption, have covered up such a serious situation. What else is going on that the general public may never be aware of?’
Wendy suggested that those receiving her newsletter should write to the then Minister of Agriculture, the Right Hon. William Waldegrave. The newsletter was illustrated with five colour photographs, showing dead hens, filthy cages, droppings-encrusted eggs and a heap of droppings, rotten eggs and decaying hens piled up beneath the lowest cages in one of the units. The reverse of the newsletter was taken up with a concentrated fact sheet that we’d provided, outlining the legal situation and key points about the battery system.
At that time some forty million hens, accounting for 85% of the national flock, were trapped in battery cages because the general public were buying their eggs. The fact sheet ended with the plea: INSIST ON FREE RANGE!
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November 10th 1994: We wrote to the Minister about the farm Wendy had stumbled upon, expressing amazement that its owner would not be prosecuted for cruelty. The reply, from the Minister’s Private Secretary, was predictable. Peppered with phrases about ‘understanding your concern’ we were told that ‘…our Private Secretary was unable to disclose any further details of this individual case, but could confirm that the Veterinary Officer in question found no evidence of contravention of the law…’. Sickeningly familiar, yet extraordinarily inappropriate in view of the photographic evidence of conditions that flouted MAFF’s own legislation to a startling degree. It seemed that yet again MAFF could call black white, and simply get away with it.
By early in 1995, Wendy’s tireless work to expose cruel exploitation of farmed animals had begun. Quite soon she had set up Hillside Animal Sanctuary, based in Frettenham, Norfolk, to be extended some thirteen years later by the addition of Hillside Shire Horse Sanctuary at nearby West Runton.
Since the founding of Hillside Animal Sanctuary, its investigators have uncovered conditions on numerous farms and in slaughterhouses (both legal and illegal) where laws have been broken. They’ve not only filmed conditions in factory farms but in units boasting free range eggs, even, on one occasion, ‘organic’ eggs being sold under the Freedom Food logo. (That farm’s FF accreditation was subsequently withdrawn.)
In 2001 Hillside, in co-operation with Animal Defenders, investigated two Bernard Matthews turkey farms in Norfolk. Under the heading ‘Matthews is probed over turkey horror – RSPCA may bring charges’ the Daily Mirror (January 11th) reported on the vile conditions in the sheds – birds lying dead, others with festering wounds and one bird with a growth covering one eye completely. Following the report in the Daily Mirror, a former worker came forward, stating: ‘The video pictures are a completely accurate account of what life is like on a Matthews’ turkey farm. These birds had terrible deformities because of growth promoters. Some birds were carrying live maggots in their wounds.’
No prosecution resulted from the investigation. How very fortunate for Mr Matthews.
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As a result of 2003 surveillance by Hillside, a duck farm owned by a well-known company was featured on the BBC television programme ‘Inside Out’. The TV interviewer asked a DEFRA vet if it would represent a breach of legislation if sick, trapped, blind and ailing ducks were found in the sheds, to which the vet replied: ‘Yes, Absolutely.’ Notwithstanding video evidence using Global Positioning System equipment (GPS records the time, date and location of filming) this company was found not guilty of cruelty. Footage of this duck farm is included in Hillside’s DVD ‘Ducks in Despair’.
In 2003 a particularly dreadful example of abuse of turkeys was exposed by Hillside. Dead and dying birds were filmed, some deformed, others sightless, heads pecked raw. A dreadful smell pervaded the area, tracked down to a mass of dead turkeys, left to rot in a heaving sea of maggots. Almost unbelievably, part of this farm boasted well-trusted welfare accreditation. Yet despite all the evidence of suffering no prosecution resulted. Images of the turkey farm in question can still be seen on Hillside’s website, but there’s no way that viewers can experience the stink from the filthy birds or from the fly- and maggot-infested piles of ‘deads’.
I’ve just been re-reading a copy of a letter I wrote to Norfolk’s Trading Standards department, dated October 14th 2003, concerning this same farm. At Hillside’s request (seconded by us) Trading Standards officers had visited the farm four days previously. In a telephone conversation with me, a TS officer claimed to have been ‘appalled’ by what he saw. However, he stressed it was DEFRA’s view that must count in the end, whenever a welfare inspection is involved. And, as we know to our cost, veterinarians’ opinions are paramount and often highly contentious.
In my letter I’d listed key points shown on Hillside’s video: birds with bloodied heads (the injuries clearly of long-standing), birds with enlarged hock joints, indicating a painful and entrenched condition, birds with diseased feet, damaged eyes (some missing altogether, the result of aggressive pecking) feather loss on backs (from aggressive pecking), birds with faces so severely pecked as to be scarcely identifiable, birds unable to walk, so likely to die from starvation. And birds who were just plain filthy.
In view of this long list, I wrote: ‘I fully understand that only DEFRA is in a position to pass judgement on veterinary matters, but am a little surprised that the health aspect of food production is apparently out of your hands. Clearly, rotting carcases, clouds of flies, millions of maggots and severely unhealthy birds (some perhaps destined for human consumption) do relate to standards required for food production.’
My notes on a telephone conversation I had with a DEFRA vet at Bury St Edmunds about this same farm went as follows: This Ministry vet had, on October 10th, found the farm to be ‘quite a nice turkey farm’. He’d considered the owner, and a stock person to whom he’d spoken, both to be ‘concerned about the birds’. He had looked into all seven sheds, so was basing his opinions on twenty seven thousand turkeys. The owner had told the vet that he’d ‘had the RSPCA round’.
On October 16th I phoned DEFRA’s Head of Animal Health and Welfare Strategy Unit in London and spoke to Ms Diana Linskey. I indicated my unwillingness to continue attending meetings at which DEFRA initiatives were discussed, if the department had a hidden agenda in the shape of a determination to continue with cover-ups such as we and Hillside had witnessed over many years.
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October 20th 2003: Yet again, I phoned DEFRA’s Divisional Veterinary Manager (DVM) at Bury St Edmunds. He admitted, when pressed, that some birds on the turkey farm were affected by ‘some quite recent injuries,’ though ‘not all were recent’. Astonishingly, he claimed it wasn’t easy to judge conditions on the farm from Hillside’s video footage, though apparently it had been good enough to show to the owner, who was now aware that he ‘had a problem’. The DVM said the turkeys had been ‘fairly close to slaughter’ and that things were ‘a little unfortunate’. He then suggested that he and I were ‘coming from different directions’. I said I was coming straight from the demands of current legislation and he admitted that I was ‘quite right’ regarding the legal obligation on farmers to make daily inspections of intensively farmed turkeys and to ensure that any injured or sick bird is isolated or culled.
In the course of the conversation the matter of trespassing was raised. When I asked how he expected people to know about cruelty to factory farmed animals other than via trespass, since most abuse went on behind closed doors in windowless
sheds, the DVM seemed to feel himself at even more of a disadvantage. Certainly he had no pat answer ready.
I also pointed out that DEFRA’s vets numbered around two hundred, to cover many thousands of farms holding livestock. And I reminded him that DEFRA, on its own admission, didn’t even know the location of many farms.
In 2009 yet another shocking example of a welfare-accredited farm was publicised on TV, this time on Channel 5’s Five News report. A free copy of the broadcast is available from Hillside. An additional and disturbing find on this farm was a note to employees from the farm manager warning of an impending inspection by a representative of the welfare scheme in question. Details of this damning note can be seen on www.hillside.org.uk/about-investigations.htm and it seems that this practice was, and may still be, par for the course.
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Not all the animals found by Hillside in dreadful conditions are intensively kept – severe foot rot in sheep, and pigs living outside in squalor have also featured on the sanctuary’s list. Yet, despite ample evidence, few incidents of abuse uncovered by Hillside have ended in the courts.
Among those that have, are convictions for cruel slaughter. Take the farm in Ripon, North Yorkshire, where, in the year 2000, sheep and goats were filmed being ritually slaughtered in a filthy shed and left to die in agony. Michael Hawkswell, one of the two defendants, admitted that the meat butchered by Isap Lakha was sold to Indian restaurants and to butchers’ shop all over the country. The pair were given custodial sentences, Hawkswell receiving four months and Lakha two. Both were banned from keeping animals for ten years.
There was more illegal Halal slaughter, this time on a farm in Norfolk. Hillside filmed goats being butchered with blunt knives and again left to die slow, painful deaths.
There’s a vitally important point to make here. It is unusual for Hillside investigators to venture even as far as North Yorkshire: almost all the cases of cruelty and neglect uncovered by the sanctuary have been in or near Norfolk. And this suggests the scale of the problem: illegal conditions such as those revealed by Hillside, Animal Aid, Compassion in World Farming, Advocates for Animals (now OneKind) Viva!, PETA, Chickens’ Lib/FAWN and many others are to be found all over the United Kingdom.