Last year, Animal Aid obtained evidence showing slaughterhouse workers spitting into the faces of live pigs, urinating into the animals’ pen, and smoking until they coughed up mucus, which was spat out onto the floor.

The film was sent to the Food Standards Agency, which confirmed what we already knew – that none of these unsanitary acts are against the law. Before the EU developed hygiene legislation, the UK abided by its own Regulations, under which all of these acts would have been illegal.

Animal Aid has filmed sadistic cruelty to animals inside UK slaughterhouses in recent years – including pigs being burned with cigarettes and animals kicked, punched, beaten and goaded – but now it is clear that there are many other serious problems.

In just the last few weeks, decaying, maggot-infested animal by-products and no cleaning processes were found at a Northern Ireland slaughterhouse, three shotguns were stolen from a Sussex abattoir, and a captive bolt gun – a deadly weapon used to murder a Suffolk woman in 2009 – was taken from a Scottish slaughterhouse. Consumers who find such lax security, poor hygiene and animal cruelty reprehensible might choose to withdraw their financial support from this industry altogether and go meat-free.

Kate Fowler Head of Campaigns Animal Aid The Old Chapel Bradford Street Tonbridge