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

MAFF vet Jim Dring was sent to the fattening unit at Burnside Farm, Heddon-on-the-Wall, Northumberland, which was run by Bobby Waugh and his brother Ronald before it was known if the virus was present.

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

He said he was sent from MAFF's Carlisle office to Burnside Farm on February 22 last year, after the disease was discovered at Cheale Meats abattoir in Essex all its suppliers were traced.

He entered the first shed and noticed lesions on the trotter of one pig.

''In my heart I knew at that moment we were in big trouble,'' he said.

He had not much experience of foot-and-mouth disease before that day, although he had seen deliberately infected animals at the Pirbright Laboratory which specialises in the disease.

Moments after he saw the infected animal a colleague drew his attention to beasts in another shed at the farm.

Mr Dring told the hearing there were a total of 100 pigs in two adjacent 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.''

Pigs were usually afraid of strangers and would squeal and run away before becoming inquisitive and sniffing at a visitor, he said. ''But these pigs were very unresponsive. They were cold and clammy, not healthy and pink,'' Mr Dring said.

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 onto 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.