Cruel farmer banned from keeping pigs

Keith Barnett, 60, of The Square, Pevensey, who traded as the Happy Pig Company, was also banned indefinitely from keeping pigs and ordered to pay 888.12 costs when he appeared before Deputy District Judge Brown for sentence.

At a hearing before Hastings magistrates earlier in the month Barnett admitted seven charges of animal cruelty, committed while rearing pigs on rented land at Sluice Farm, off Herbrand Walk, near Bexhill.

Gareth Jones, prosecuting for East Sussex County Council, said concern over the pigs' condition had been raised after Barnett's landlord, who had rented the site to him four years previously, visited the site and saw their distress.

The Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals was alerted and its inspectors, plus others from the Animal Health Agency and Trading Standards, attended and found starving pigs and the remains of others together in the same enclosure.

It appeared some of the living animals had been feeding off the dead in order to survive.

Solicitor Nick Baskett, for Barnett, said his client's poor health had led to his inability to care properly for the animals.

At a previous hearing, magistrates were told Barnett had suffered a heart attack.

After reading reports, Judge Brown told Barnett: "It is quite clear to me that in this case you took on an enterprise that was too much for you to cope with. I accept there was no deliberate act of cruelty."

He credited Barnett for having no previous convictions for similar offences, for pleading guilty at the first opportunity and for since disposing of pigs and land. He said this placed him "in the lower range of culpability".

But he added: "It is very, very unfortunate that if you had been better prepared none of this would have happened.

"It was incumbent upon you to ensure that you were able to deal with it and the result was animals suffering."

He ordered that Barnett be placed on a 7pm to 7am curfew for five months, to be monitored by electronic tag; that he pay the costs of the case within two weeks, or else arrange payment by instalments, and banned him from keeping pigs again.

Barnett was told he would be allowed to keep 12 chickens still in his possession.

After the hearing, Barnett - who was dressed in jeans, a green polo shirt and Panama hat, and who walked to and from court with the aid of a stick - refused to talk to waiting media about the case.

But he was followed to his car by a man who shouted at him several times, addressing him as "scumbag".

The man identified himself as Bill Fisher, representing Justice and Freedom for Animals, who told reporters: "These pigs were eating others' dead carcasses. That didn't happen in five minutes. He could have got rid of the pigs sooner than he did. It's disgraceful."