CHINESE cutlery, plastic sandwich packets and animal body parts were found at a North-East pig farm at the centre of last year's foot-and-mouth outbreak, a court heard yesterday.

A graphic 40-minute video showing conditions at Burnside Farm at Heddon-on-the-Wall, Northumberland, was shown to the judge considering charges against farmer Bobby Waugh.

The video, shot by trading standards officers who are prosecuting the 56-year-old farmer, showed a dead pig in a walkway, metal knives, forks and spoons among the feed piped directly into pens, and listless animals lying on the floor.

Waugh, 56, of St Luke's Road, Pallion, Sunderland, denies 16 charges at South-East Northumberland Magistrates' Court, including failing to notify officials of a foot-and-mouth outbreak, cruelty to animals, and feeding unprocessed waste to pigs.

The video, shot in February last year, showed scores of empty plastic sandwich packets being discovered in bins outside the farm.

A Chinese porcelain soup spoon was found among the cutlery in one of the pens at the farm, Government vet Sam Mansley told the court.

He said he also discovered part of a sheep's vertebrae in a trough.

Mr Mansley said he had approached Waugh at the time and the farmer had tried to blame the disease on a recent visit by a ministry inspector.

Mr Mansley told the court: "He said they were all right until 'that bastard Jimmy Dring went in there last Thursday, he must have carried it with him'."

The case continues.

Read more about foot-and-mouth here.