TWO pig keepers with business links to the North-East farmer at the centre of the foot-and-mouth crisis were fined yesterday after untreated swill was discovered on their premises.

Father and son Alan and Kenneth Clement were caught out by a ten-week undercover surveillance operation last year.

The scraps the Clements took back to West Craig Lea Farm, at Roddymoor, Crook, County Durham, contained meat, including hamburgers and poultry, magistrates at Bishop Auckland were told.

Alan Clement, 57, was fined £200 for failing to keep feeding records and another £200 for taking food back to the farm that had not been treated to remove bacteria. He pleaded guilty to both offences.

Kenneth Clement, 28, admitted taking unprocessed waste food on to the pig farm where both men live in a caravan. He was fined £200. They each also had to pay £100 costs.

The court heard how the pair collected untreated swill and took it to a County Durham processing unit run by Reg Potts.

The pair said they collected about 50 bins of catering waste a day which were processed by Mr Potts and Ronnie Waugh.

Mr Waugh's farm at Heddon-on-the-Wall, Northumberland, is believed to be the centre of the foot-and-mouth crisis gripping the country.

Ministry investigators are examining the possibility that livestock may have contracted the disease from pig swill. There is, however, no suggestion that the swill may have come from the Clements.

Prosecutor Chris Baker told the court that unprocessed food was found on the Clements' farm even though they had been warned several times by an environmental health inspector.

On January 21, 2000, the inspector followed Kenneth Clement as he collected waste food from Harperley Hall police training school, near Crook, and took it to Craig Lea. He found bins of waste and took samples to be analysed.

Mr Chris Baker, prosecuting, said: "Very high levels of bacteria were present and consistent with not having been heat-processed at 100C for 60 minutes. In short, unprocessed waste. Some samples showed the presence of pork, meat, eggs and poultry."

Defence barrister Don McFall said there was nothing to suggest a link between the offences and the foot-and-mouth crisis. The swill was at Craig Lea because Kenneth Clement had stopped there for breakfast on his way to the processors.