Day 275 - 08 Jul 96 - Page 21


     
     1   Q.   You were 13?
     2        A.  I was 13 but, actually, I studied it at school and that
     3        was how I visited slaughter houses, and I then did a short
     4        course at an agricultural college when I was 16, when I was
     5        at 6th Form College, I think.
     6
     7   Q.   Yes.  Very well?
     8        A.  I do not think I visited the slaughter houses until I
     9        was about 15.  I have been a vegan since 1982.  As stated
    10        previously, I watched "The Animals" film and I have watched
    11        "Pandora's Box", both of which convinced me still further
    12        of the cruelty and suffering involved in factory farming
    13        and slaughter methods.
    14
    15             If I just say that in actual fact when I was growing
    16        up, when I was at school, the reason I was studying
    17        agriculture was because I wanted to work in farming and it
    18        was what I saw as a result of my studies that turned me
    19        away from that and made me decide to become vegetarian
    20        instead.  Just, I found it completely horrific, what was
    21        going on in order to rare animals for profit to produce
    22        meat.
    23
    24             "I have also read the Farm Animal Welfare Council
    25        (Government Report Appointed Body) reports on the welfare
    26        of the animals at the time of slaughter, which expressed
    27        concern about the welfare of the animals and referred to
    28        the frequency of inefficient stunning methods during
    29        slaughter which could result in animals having their
    30        throats cut while still fully conscious.  I have been to
    31        Sun Valley Poultry, who supply the chickens used in
    32        McDonald's food products, and have taken photographs of the
    33        chickens kept there in broiler sheds.  The photographs that
    34        are referred to in my statement are the photographs that
    35        appear in supplementary list of documents tab 17.  They
    36        were taken in spring 1991."  The photographs that were put
    37        to I think Mark Patterson when he was there.
    38        "And I recollect seeing chickens that were quite clearly
    39        incapable of walking and very apparently suffering from the
    40        conditions that they were being kept in.
    41
    42             "I have also been shown photographs of chickens from
    43        Sun Valley being transported in crates by lorry prior to
    44        slaughter and have been told of some of the methods used by
    45        Sun Valley by first-hand witnesses.  I can remember Jane
    46        Laporte and New Zealand John went to the protest at Sun
    47        Valley Poultry in December 1988, and I remember seeing
    48        photographs of the chickens on the back of the transporter
    49        lorries at that time, or shortly after that time, and I
    50        remember them reporting on what they had seen at a London
    51        Greenpeace meeting", the one that would have been after the
    52        demonstration.
    53
    54             "I consider that current factory farming and slaughter
    55        methods are cruel and that they are also unnecessary, and I
    56        consider that it is totally justifiable to call such
    57        methods torture and murder.  It is irrelevant that
    58        McDonald's neither own or manage slaughter houses.  They
    59        place the orders with the firm that do it, and so they are
    60        responsible.

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