Army Threatened Farmer's Family with House Arrest

A family in Staffordshire was threatened by the army with house arrest if they contacted the media over the awful scenes that had surrounded the slaughter of nearly 2,000 animals on their farm which were wrongly suspected of being diseased. The family's ordeal began at the end of March, when Hall Farm was visited by an Australian vet working for MAFF, who admitted he had never seen a case of foot- and mouth in his life. He ordered the destruction of every animal on the farm. That night the family watched 26 ewes give birth, and next morning the killing began. The slaughter continued until 10 o'clock that night, and next day the MAFF team returned to bury the mountain of corpses in a field. Under the contiguous cull policy all the animals on a neighbouring farm were also killed, even though tests on this farm had proved negative.

Two weeks later MAFF officials appeared on the Hall Farm to say the burial site was ÇweepingÈ and that the bodies would have to be dug up and reburied. Local BBC television programme Midlands Today was then contacted. When a crew arrived to start filming a digger which was reburying the animals, the MAFF officials objected and called in the army. Within 10 minutes two Land Rovers appeared, with six soldiers, who ordered the cameraman to stop filming and strip to his underwear. They told the BBC crew to leave, closing the road past the farm with sandbags. The officer told the family that if they caused 'any more fuss' the family would be put under house arrest.

Two weeks ago MAFF finally confirmed to the family that their tests had proved negative, and that they had therefore lost their flock of pedigree sheep, 1,550 pigs and two cows for no reason. MAFF has admitted that possibly only one per cent of the 2.5 million animals killed since the epidemic began were actually infected.

Source: The Sunday Telegraph, 6 May 2001