CUTLERY picked out of pigswill at a farm at the centre of last year's foot-and-mouth first outbreak was routinely sent to Romania, a court heard yesterday.

Pig farmer Bobby Waugh was giving evidence for the first time on the ninth day of the trial against him brought by Northumberland County Council's trading standards department.

He told District Judge James Prowse that he fed his animals out-of-date sandwiches, pies and pastries from bakers, and catering waste from local schools and restaurants.

But he insisted it was subjected to heat treatment before it was fed to his 527 animals at his fattening unit in Heddon-on-the-Wall, Northumberland.

He told the hearing at South East Northumberland Magistrates' Court: "There was so much cutlery in the swill, I could get a bin full of it every week. Sometimes when I had a bin, if it was a bit light, you would know it was not all swill - there could be ten teapots in it.

"A man would come to the farm to collect it and the cutlery went to Romania."

The softly-spoken farmer was outlining how animals were fed at his premises, which was among the suppliers of Cheale Meats abattoir where the disease was first found in February last year.

Mr Waugh, 56, of St Luke's Road, Pallion, Sunderland, denies 16 charges - 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 against his brother, Ronald, 60, who also ran the farm, was adjourned indefinitely due to ill-health.

Mr Waugh told the court he knew the procedure for reporting notifiable diseases, as his herd had suffered swine fever in 1975.

On that occasion, the animals were culled and the business was compensated.

In a video shown to the court previously, some of the pigs were seen huddled together, and one vet had told the court they looked "extremely depressed".

Mr Waugh told the court that pigs were susceptible to the cold and it was particularly chilly last February.

He said: ''At that time of year it is cold, but the witnesses said they didn't feel it. The pigs weren't dressed though - the pigs didn't have coats on.''

The hearing continues today.