AN expert on foot-and-mouth disease who was one of the first veterinary surgeons to visit a pig farm identified as having the virus at the start of last year's outbreak has told a court that the animals he saw there were "extremely depressed".

Dr Paul Kitching, then head of the World Reference Laboratory for Foot-and-Mouth Disease at the Institute of Animal Health in Pirbright, Surrey, was giving evidence at the trial of pig farmer Bobby Waugh, who farmed at Heddon-on-the-Wall, Northumberland.

Dr Kitching told District Judge James Prowse at South East Northumberland Magistrates' Court that he visited Waugh's farm in February.

"The pigs were extremely depressed, they didn't want to move," Dr Kitching said.

"They were certainly not inquisitive. Although I didn't try to feed them, I suspect they were not very hungry."

Dr Kitching, took blood samples from beasts suspected of having the disease but his staff did not take samples from all 527 pigs for humanitarian reasons, he said, adding: "Staff who were helping were getting pretty upset and the pigs themselves were in some distress.

"I decided we had taken enough samples from shed three."

Many pigs were lame and some had lesions on all four feet Dr Kitching estimated that some lesions had been present for 10 days. Waugh, 56, of St Luke's Road, Pallion, Sunderland, denies 16 charges brought by Northumberland County Council's Trading Standards Department.

He faces five counts of failing to notify officials of a foot-and-mouth outbreak, four of cruelty to animals, one of taking unprocessed catering waste on to premises where pigs are kept, one of feeding unprocessed waste to pigs, four of failing to dispose of animal by-products, and one of failing to record the movement of pigs.

The case continues.