MAFF accused of unfair cull pressure
24 May 2001
MAFF accused of unfair cull pressure
By John Burns, south-west England correspondent
GOVERNMENT vets have been accused of using outrageously unfair tactics to cull cattle belonging to a 69-year-old farmer in Devon.
Les Winslade, who had resisted the proposed cull of his 60 cattle near Knowstone, was supported by high-profile campaign against the slaughter.
But he eventually yielded to the pressure late on Wednesday (23 May).
Mr Winslades daughter Tina said he had become increasingly worried about the effect of the stress on his wife and the cost of legal action against the cull.
She said her father had been told that he could end up with a bill for 30,000 if he lost, because Ministry of Agriculture vets would want their costs paid.
But a MAFF spokesman said that the vets involved would not have known about legal costs. He claimed that such threats were never made.
Exmoor farmer Christopher Thomas-Everard, who was helping Mr Winslade, said the cattle should have been blood-tested for foot-and-mouth.
Waiting to see whether symptoms then developed would not have put any neighbouring stock at risk because they had all been killed, he said.
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