Knife poised at the throat of a helpless sheep, this is the moment a slaughterman cuts the throat of a fully conscious animal.
Our exclusive pictures reveal for the first time the full horror of a religious practice that Britain’s top vet wants outlawed.
Undercover Mail on Sunday investigators secretly filmed inside a halal abattoir as more than 100 sheep appeared to writhe in agony after being ritually killed.
Step one: The animals are immobilised but not stunned, so they are still aware of their surroundings
Step two: The sheep are moved on a conveyor belt to slaughter
Step three: They are still fighting for their lives, even after having their throats cut
Step 4: Even when strung up. A leading vet has called for the practice of unstunned killing to be banned
They were placed onto a conveyer belt with their legs tethered before the knife was drawn swiftly across their throats.
In the seconds after the sudden cut, the sheep strained to raise their heads as blood poured from their wounds. They then twitched and convulsed as they were hoisted by their hind legs on metal hooks to drain their bodies of blood.
In non-halal abattoirs, livestock are stunned before killing to prevent unnecessary suffering. Some halal abattoirs also practise pre-stunning.
But the animals we saw at this abattoir were fully conscious when slaughtered – a practice campaigners say is inhumane and needlessly cruel.
Killing an animal without prior stunning is illegal in Britain, but the law gives special exemption to Muslim and Jewish meat producers on the grounds of religion.
According to some Islamic scholars, stunning an animal before it is slaughtered for meat is not permitted. There are believed to be about 12 abattoirs dedicated to unstunned slaughterhouses in the UK, and hundreds of abattoirs that do stunned halal slaughter.
Denmark and Poland have recently banned unstunned ritual slaughter – a precedent animal welfare groups in Britain want the Government to follow. Last night, John Blackwell, the new president-elect of the British Veterinary Association (BVA), said: ‘We would like to see unstunned slaughter banned in the UK on the grounds of animal welfare.
There is current scientific evidence which says that animals do feel pain if they are slaughtered without any stunning.’
However, supporters of ritual slaughter have accused Mr Blackwell and the BVA of ‘inflaming prejudice’. Nadheem Adham, a director at the Halal Monitoring Committee, which certifies unstunned Islamic abattoirs, said: ‘We believe that halal unstunned slaughter is the most humane method of killing, as a swift stroke in the neck by a sharp knife renders the animal insensible to pain.’
Two Mail on Sunday reporters posing as meat buyers visited the Simply Halal abattoir in Banham, Norfolk.
The abattoir, which is a dedicated slaughterhouse for killing animals without stunning, dispatches about 1,000 sheep and cattle each week. It received £366,000 of taxpayers’ money from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) to set up an adjoining plant to pack and store the slaughtered meat.
The MoS investigators were given a tour of the abattoir during a dawn slaughter session on Friday morning, before they placed an order for lamb and mutton.
Simply Halal is among a number of new abattoirs that have sprung up across Britain, providing a rising demand among Britain’s 2.7 million Muslims for meat from animals not stunned during killing.
Britain’s halal market is now worth £2.6 billion, accounting for 15 per cent of all meat eaten here.
Latest figures from the Food Standards Agency show that about 32 million chickens, 1.4 million sheep and goats and 70,000 cattle are slaughtered without stunning each year in the UK.
John Blackwell, President-elect of British Veterinary Association: 'We'd like to see unstunned slaughter like this banned in the UK'
Simply Halal, which switches its operations once a week to produce kosher meat for the Jewish market, is run by Roger Carr, 65, who says he has operated abattoirs since he was 15.
Although most of his customers are Muslim traders, in an astonishing outburst which was recorded, Mr Carr referred to his customers as ‘Pakis’ and told an undercover reporter of Bangladeshi origin: ‘There’s more bad in your people than there is, erm, well that’s what I found.’
During the ‘business meeting’ at his shabby office, Mr Carr showed contempt for Asian butchers and restaurant owners on the famous ‘curry mile’ of Brick Lane in East London. He appeared to say that they will accept even dog meat from suppliers.
He said: ‘You see the Pakis only want lean sheep, they don’t want no covering on it. They only want 24-26 kilos. Then you got Brick Lane, you can put any shit there, even dogs...’
He also said that he supplied his meat to mainstream butchers and the supermarket giant Morrisons, whose unsuspecting customers may be eating the meat products without knowing they have come from animals that were not stunned.
Customers assume that mainstream butchers source their meat from abattoirs where all animals are slaughtered with prior stunning. They also expect that fresh and frozen meat in supermarkets is also from stunned slaughter.
Some supermarket stores in Asian areas do sell ‘unstunned’ fresh meat, but it is sold at special concession counters.
But Mr Carr revealed that his Simply Halal frozen meat products are sold in 34 Morrisons stores, alongside conventional frozen meat products.
A spokesman for Morrisons said: ‘We sell unstunned meat because this is purchased by some Muslim and Jewish customers. It is clearly labelled as halal and it is the responsibility of the brand owner – in this case Simply Halal – to decide how they label their product.’
After the ‘business meeting’ at Simply Halal, the MoS reporters visited the abattoir, where they filmed more than 20 sheep getting slaughtered. The sheep were dragged from their pen and put on an escalator belt that also restrained their legs.
Then the abattoir’s Muslim slaughterman cut each animal’s throat as he chanted ‘Allahu Akbar [God is great]’, before dangling them by their legs on metal hooks upside down, as they writhed.
As the automated hook line took the sheep to another room, they were beheaded by another slaughterman, and fleeced and skinned by other workers.
Niche market: Simply Halal abbattoir, one of 12 in the UK dedicated to slaughtering animals without stunning
The slaughterman, from Luton, Bedfordshire, said he had been killing animals for the past 25 years. When asked how long it took an animal to die from the cut, he said coldly: ‘25 seconds.’ We showed our footage to Mr Blackwell, who said that it confirmed the latest scientific research on unstunned slaughter, which states that animals like sheep feel excruciating pain for as long as 30 seconds after their throats are cut.
The vet added that the Simply Halal slaughterman appeared to be breaching some rules set out by the Food Standards Agency, which regulates Britain’s abattoirs.
Mr Blackwell said: ‘The slaughterman should not have put more than one sheep on the escalator belt ahead of slaughter, so that one animal does not witness the other being killed. Secondly, the slaughterman should have cleaned his knife after each cut as a hygiene rule.
But he was not doing that.’ The BVA, along with the RSPCA, this weekend renewed its call to have ritual slaughter banned in the UK, and said it plans an e-petition against the practice.
Mr Blackwell said: ‘We don’t want religious slaughter banned, but there are ways to meet in the middle, like employing post-cut stuns, which would reduce the pain, and improve animal welfare.’
He also added that since about 90 per cent of halal meat in the UK is pre-stunned, Muslim leaders should work to increase that figure and bring it closer to 100 per cent.
The BVA has also asked for better labelling, so that all meat products on supermarket shelves are labelled ‘stunned’ or ‘unstunned’. He said a robust labelling system would prevent unsuspecting customers eating meat which they may feel is ‘unethically produced’.
Last month, The MoS revealed how left-over unstunned kosher meat is ending up in the mainstream food chain, being sold in supermarkets, ready-made meals and even burgers.
The European Commission is reviewing current legislation on stunning, and is likely to make a decision by the end of the summer.
When the Mail on Sunday contacted Mr Carr for a response, he said his slaughterhouse had not done anything illegal. He said: ‘It’s to do with religion. It’s not cruel at all. We are not doing anything unlawful.’ He denied that he sold his meat to mainstream butcher shops, but did not deny using terms like ‘Paki’ in his conversation.
He added: ‘What you did is out of order. I have nothing to say to you. You are scum.’
A spokesman for the Association of Independent Meat Suppliers, who spoke on Mr Carr’s behalf, added that his abattoir complied with all UK laws.
A DEFRA spokesman said: ‘Although we would prefer animals to be stunned before slaughter, we respect the rights of Jewish and Muslim communities to eat meat in accordance with their beliefs. The Government has no intention of banning religious slaughter.’
HOW THE UNSTUNNED MEAT ENDS UP ON YOUR DINNER PLATE
The Simply Halal abattoir slaughters about 1,000 sheep and cattle each week for the Muslim and Jewish markets.
However, Roger Carr, owner of Simply Halal, has revealed his meat is also ending up with mainstream butchers, and is sold at 34 stores belonging to supermarket giant Morrisons.
Mr Carr said he sells the meat to up to three mainstream butchers in the South-East who are selling it on to unsuspecting customers who do not know the animals were not stunned before slaughter.
Most fresh and frozen meats in supermarkets are sourced from abattoirs which stun before killing.
But supermarket chains like Tesco and Asda sell some unstunned meat at stores in areas with high Muslim populations in special ‘concession counters’ run by independent companies.
However, Simply Halal’s range of frozen meat like Hot & Spicy Minute Steaks, Mediterranean Koftas, Beef Kebabs and Beef Meatballs is being sold at Morrisons stores among other Asian foods.
The labelling on the packs merely states it is ‘halal’, but does not say it comes from unstunned animals.
Unwitting customers could end up buying the products thinking they are buying meat which is from animals that were stunned, as 90 per cent of halal meat produced in the UK tends to be from stunned slaughter. Only ten per cent of halal meat is not stunned, produced for more strict Muslims who claim sharia law forbids stunning.
The Mail on Sunday has previously revealed that halal meat from animals who had been stunned before slaughter was being sold in schools, hospitals, pubs and at famous sporting venues such as Ascot and Twickenham.
All the beef, chicken and lamb sold to fans at Wembley was secretly prepared in accordance with Islamic law, while Cheltenham College was one of several top public schools which also served halal chicken to pupils without informing them.
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