A VET quit a Government foot-and-mouth centre because he was carpeted for taking animal tongues for private research.

Dissatisfied staff at the Government's Disease Emergency Control Centre, in Newcastle, have highlighted the incident and what they say is a series of other foul-ups.

Angry at what they describe as "incompetence and chaos" at the Maff headquarters, they broke the civil service code of silence to speak of a catalogue of errors.

They say the vet, from New Zealand, wanted the animal parts to take away to examine more thoroughly for his own purposes.

A soldier also brought a partly dissected lamb in a bin liner from an infected farm to the offices in what they described as a prank.

The staff also said that a vet refused to use a £1m computer tracing system, favouring his index cards because "they worked perfectly well in 1967".

Army officers were described as having numerous stand-up arguments with Maff vets.

One worker said: "It has been total chaos from the outset and totally undisciplined."

The foot-and-mouth emergency control centre opened on April 2, following a £2m refurbishment of Maff's plant health division, at Kenton Bar.

Previously, all North-East animal related matters were dealt with by Maff offices in Carlisle and Northallerton, in North Yorkshire.

A Government spokesman said: "We can confirm that a vet did bring animal tongues back to the DECC and that the vet was disciplined accordingly, which resulted in the vet resigning.

"Also, specimens from a lamb that had a post-mortem exmaination were brought into the centre by a temporary veterinary inspector in a clinical waste bag and were disposed of.

"Civil servants who are convicted of criminal acts are subject to appropriate disciplinary action by their employing department."