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.
