Our difficult-to-watch footage reveals heartbreaking scenes routinely taking place in abattoirs and lairages across the country. Inside each facility there is a slaughterhouse manager, licenced operatives, Closed Circuit Television (CCTV), and a Food Standards Agency (FSA)-appointed Official Veterinarian, whose job is arguably the most important. All of these create a smokescreen of 'good welfare', that our undercover investigations reveal to be fictitious.
Approved slaughterhouses are not subject to unannounced inspections by the FSA, so the task of daily animal inspections lies with the vet. It is this veterinarian who reports non-compliances to both the FSA and the Animal & Plant Health Agency (APHA).
“CCTV does not replace, reduce, nor is considered a substitute for, direct practical official observations by Official Veterinarians” – Food Standards Agency
Negligent Official Veterinarians and the general misuse of slaughterhouse CCTV – which is not routinely nor randomly seized by governing bodies – have caused animal suffering to go largely unseen and unreported.
Despite announcing an ‘open data’ policy in February 2021, the FSA have refused Freedom of Information requests made by Animal Justice Project on: animal welfare breaches within UK slaughterhouses over the past three years, animal welfare breaches recorded by veterinarians, and non-compliance data from Hewitt slaughterhouse.
In January 2021, an industry-wide review of the Welfare of Animals at the Time of Killing (WATOK) legislation took place. The UK government stated that the review would
“provide significant opportunity to identify/signpost key themes for improvement”.
And yet, it does not address the glaring problems Animal Justice Project encountered during several undercover investigations, and does nothing to illustrate the real horrors animals face in abattoirs.
Our investigation at C&K Meats in Suffolk, where we planted an undercover worker, has revealed a horror show of abuses and suffering by thousands of pigs every week. From unloading to gassing, the facade of ‘high welfare’ at this RSPCA Assured abattoir soon faded. This is a reminder that even those slaughterhouses acting under the 'highest welfare' assurance scheme in the country are still rife with abuses and potential legal breaches.
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Using an undercover worker, we infiltrated one of Morrisons’ slaughterhouses, Woodhead Bros in Spalding, Lincolnshire. Using brand-new tactics, we filmed the terrifying final moments that cows and pigs face at this supermarket giant’s abattoir.
Over the course of a few days, we filmed pigs being repeatedly hit by workers, who showed them no mercy. Even injured, sick and lame animals were hit as they were forced to hurry along the ‘races’ inside the slaughterhouse. Electric prods were used on cows to move them into the stunning area. Pigs were gassed, an excruciatingly painful method of stunning animals, after being forced by automated doors into the ‘gondola’ of the gas chamber.
All of our horrific findings were filmed in full view of the supermarket’s own CCTV, as well as in the presence of ‘Official Veterinarians’, who failed to intervene when legislation was breached and animals suffered.
Our undercover investigation inside G. & G. B. Hewitt slaughterhouse was featured in the prestigious newspaper, The Times, and many other outlets, ensuring that the slaughter of animals for human consumption stays in the headlines. We recorded the sickening abuse of pigs, piglets, sheep and cows on our own cameras; abuse that was in full view of the slaughterhouse's own CCTV.
Our two-month investigation took place in early 2021 behind the walls of small, local-sourcing slaughterhouse, G. & G. B. Hewitt Slaughterhouse, Cheshire, over a period of ALMOST 200 HOURS, SPANNING EIGHT DAYS.
By targeting the government, and highlighting the failures inside abattoirs, we aim to show that there is no such thing as ‘humane slaughter’. The industry is violent to its core and must be abolished.
Reaching hundreds of thousands of people across social media and on the streets through Scammed! campaign street events, together we demand an end to animal slaughter.
The system is not broken, but is designed to fail animals, protect profit and maintain institutionalised abuse. The public is scammed into believing that the UK government has systems in place ‘protecting’ farmed animals, when what exists are smokescreens concealing the reality.
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