Friday 22 June 2001
Judge saves life of movie pig Grunty
By Adrian Addison and David Brown

A CELEBRITY pig has been saved from a foot and mouth cull by a High Court judge.

Grunty, star of a Channel 5 film called Pig at the Ritz, faced slaughter after a department inspector condemned her owner's farm. But the rare Kune Kune pig will now be saved thanks to a successful legal challenge by Rosemary Upton, its owner.

Mr Justice Harrison stopped the cull at Hill Farm, Stawley, near Wellington, Somerset, because scientific evidence showed that, even if the animal turned out to be infected, there would not be a risk to neighbouring livestock. He also refused the department permission to appeal and awarded Mrs Upton her legal costs, leaving the Government with an estimated £40,000 legal bill.

Yesterday the Government apologised after a foot and mouth disease slaughterman tried to shoot two runaway cows in public with a rifle which was not powerful enough to kill them.

The Department of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs said that it "regretted" the incident, which took place in front of onlookers at Niffany Farm, Skipton, North Yorks, on Tuesday evening and said that it was due to "errors made at a time of pressure".

The slaughterman, who was not named, fired a rifle "of inadequate calibre to penetrate the skull" as the cows escaped from a field where they had been gathered with others to be culled. A total of 330 cattle were killed there.

A department spokesman said: "The two animals were left to graze until the next morning when a marksman with the correct equipment slaughtered them." Keith Marshall, 46, owner of the farm, said he was "happy" with the way the animals were culled.