The first vet sent to a pig farm suspected of having foot-and-mouth disease at the beginning of last year's outbreak knew there was "big trouble" just minutes after he arrived, a court heard yesterday.

Jim Dring, a vet from the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Maff) was sent to Burnside Farm, Heddon-on-the-Wall, Northumberland, run by Bobby Waugh and his brother Ronald, before it was known if the virus was present.

Mr Dring told District Judge James Prowse at South East Northumberland Magistrates' Court yesterday that the animals showed signs of having contracted the disease.

He said he entered the first shed and noticed lesions on the trotter of a pig. "In my heart I knew at that moment we were in big trouble," he said.

Mr Dring told the hearing there were 100 pigs in two nearby pens.

"They were lying all huddled together on top of each other on the ground," he said.

"I went in among them to try to rouse them to see what condition they were in. They were very miserable, hunched, unresponsive.

"It was very abnormal." Bobby 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 were 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 against his brother, Ronald, has been adjourned indefinitely because of his ill health.

The hearing continues.