THE finger of suspicion over where foot-and-mouth originated has long lingered over Burnside Farm, in Northumberland.

Yesterday, a Government report into how the epidemic started, finally pinpointed the outbreak to the pig finishing unit at Heddon-on-the-Wall, on the farm of brothers Bobby and Ronald Waugh.

The report says that the disease was probably present at the farm by January 26 - almost a month before it was officially confirmed on February 23.

Thereafter, the disease spread in two different directions - to holdings in Essex and Kent, and, airborne, to neighbouring sheep, and on to markets and dealers throughout the North.

The investigation uncovered no evidence of the existence of foot-and-mouth disease in the UK prior to the Burnside Farm confirmation.

The Waugh brothers had bought 289 pigs from Darlington, Thirsk and Stokesley Markets before the outbreak, but the premises were later visited and no evidence of foot-and-mouth was confirmed.

The report, released by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) yesterday, also acknowledged that it may never be known how the meat or meat products, the likely source of the virus, entered the country.

But it did point out that there was evidence that people were bringing in meat, meat products and fish illegally, on a regular basis, particularly from countries such as Nigeria.

There were also concerns over illegal shipments of meat imported by container or hidden by container load, which were intended for restaurants or canteens.

"This increases the chance of the virus getting into catering waste and if not properly processed into susceptible pigs in sufficient quantity to cause disease," said the report.

The report also contained details of how staff from Defra uncovered scores of dried pig legs at a warehouse in Northumberland, in April last year.

They were being held in storage.

The Chinese characters on the legs suggested they were from the province of Zhejiang in China, which is famous for Chinese-style ham production. But no virus was found.

The report added that there was no evidence the disease had come from the Army importing food from foot-and-mouth areas; that a virus had been stolen from the Porton Down research centre or that the disease had been found in sheep exported to France prior to February 1.