A FATHER and son who ran a squalid, illegal slaughterhouse on the outskirts of Ilkley, and a man who botched Halal killings, were all jailed for animal cruelty last Thursday.

District Judge Roy Anderson heard how Harold Gray, 62 and his son Michael, 31, allowed maggot-infested joints of meat to lie among the filth and squalor found during a multi-agency raid, led by armed police, on their holding at Upper Austby Farm, Langbar, Ilkley, in July, 2003.

The raid followed covert filming by animal rights campaigners of Sumaullah Patel - who was paid £10 petrol money to travel from his Lancashire home - to kill three sheep with a blunt knife and not comply with Halal practices.

Prosecuting for North Yorkshire Trading Standards, Helen Gamble told Judge Anderson, sitting at Harrogate Magistrates Court, how the Grays had been encouraging farmers to dump casualty animals on their doorstep, whatever their condition.One sheep had been found with maggots in an infected foot, another had a scrotal hernia and a third chronic mastitis and pneumonia. All had suffered for at least a week and experts concluded they should have been put down before the raid.

Miss Gamble said the Grays had slaughtered on a mass scale in an abattoir where rusting equipment was covered in fat, filth, animal and bird faeces and where a toilet discharged to an open drain running down the centre of the premises.

Patel, 41, of Sunningdale Road, Bolton, pleaded guilty to three charges of causing avoidable suffering to sheep. Harold Gray, who was said to have been fined a total of £12,000 after previous court appearances for cruelty and breaches of waste regulations in 1997, 1999 and 2002, and his son each pleaded guilty to aiding and abetting the three offences and three of causing unnecessary suffering to sheep.

The Grays also admitted three contraventions of post-BSE regulations by failing to dispose of high-risk material and eight of breaching rules on cattle movements, passports and records. They were found guilty of running an unlicensed slaughterhouse.

Miss Gamble said there had been 1.1-tonnes of high-risk waste - sheep heads, spleens and intestines - in a burial pit in a field to which horses, a cow and geese had access and where the stench had been overpowering.

None of the 100 cattle on the farm had been included on a national database aimed at preventing

disease outbreaks like foot and mouth.

Richard Reed, for the Grays, said they were hard-working, well-respected farmers who had been terrified by the raid. Their slaughterhouse was closed and they no longer farmed cattle or sheep. Instead they were trying to make a living with 125 horses.

Wayne Massey, for Patel, said he was a man who had learnt his lesson and for whom custody would have a devastating effect.

Judge Anderson sent the Grays to prison for three months and banned them from keeping cattle and sheep - Harold for 10 years and Michael for five. He jailed Patel for two months.

The Judge told them they had caused pain and distress to animals. Patel's killing had been botched, incompetent and not in accord with Halal practices, while the Grays had made a living out of a slaughtering process which showed little regard for animal welfare.

Their treatment of animal waste had been reckless, involving the risk of serious contamination of land and serious disease to animals and humans.

"I accept the farming industry has experienced severe economic conditions over the last few years. Many farmers no doubt feel neither public nor Parliament have any understanding or sympathy towards the day-to-day difficulties they face. But you by your activities have brought farming into disrepute.''

Outside the court Graham Venn, head of trading standards in North Yorkshire said thousands of animals a year had been killed at the farm with most of the meat destined for the Muslim markets of West Yorkshire, Manchester and Leicester.