Horror farm meat trader charged with animal cruelty (UK)
The Daily Mail (UK) reports:
A meat trader at the centre of one of the worst cases of animal cruelty ever seen in Britain has been charged by the RSPCA with causing unnecessary suffering to animals.
Jamie Gray, 44, will appear before magistrates later this month to face charges of cruelty towards 125 horses, ponies and donkeys.
It follows a joint police and RSPCA swoop on field at Amersham, Bucks., where animals were found dead and dying.
RSPCA officers are also investigating claims that Gray, who has been dealing in horses, ponies and donkeys for at least 25 years, was selling the animals to be slaughtered for cat food on the continent.
Gray, from a travelling family, had previously faced prosecution for failing to provide adequate food and water but was cleared.
The farm owner plied his trade buying unwanted animals for as little as £1 each before transporting them abroad for abattoirs to slaughter.
He would buy some of the creatures in car parks outside animal markets across the country.
Investigators suspect he may also have set himself up as a knacker’s yard, placing advertisements in local papers offering to take away old and unwanted animals.
Starving and bedraggled: A horse that survived the farm hell. Twenty eight others were not so lucky. (Daily Mail Photograph)
