DOUBT was last night cast on the theory that the outbreak began on a Northumberland pig farm.

The virus may have been in Britain three weeks before it was spotted in this area, it was claimed.

Sheep exported to France from south Wales allegedly showed signs of the disease before animals in the North-East.

An export licence given to haulier Hugues Inizan, to take 402 sheep from Brecon to Brittany on January 31, reveals that the animals were not tested for foot-and mouth.

Once the sheep were transported, they were sold to a farmer at Montmorilson, in western France.

After the oubreak in Britain, the French equivalent of the Ministry of Agriculture (Maff) carried out tests on the sheep.

Documents show that, on March 2, ten sheep out of the imported flock tested positive for foot-and-mouth.

North East genetecist Bruce Jobson said: "This case blows apart Maff's insistence that the foot-and-mouth epidemic started at Bobby Waugh's pig farm."

A Maff spokesman said: "These sheep were exported, and we have been told by the French government that there were foot-and-mouth antibodies in the sheep they tested.

"But there is no evidence to suggest that they had the antibodies before they were exported. The most logical deduction is that they got the antibodies from other sheep which were exported after the infection at Heddon."