UK farmer Peter Kindersley has won permission to challenge the government in the high court over its policy of slaughtering healthy animals to control the foot and mouth virus. Kindersley’s lawyers argued that the policy to cull animals “only suspected of being infected” went to far and its enforcement was unlawful.
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Kindersley, the millionaire force behind Dorling Kindersley books, placed the application for judicial review after the sheep flock on his 2,500-acre organic farm were threatened with slaughter.
Yesterday’s ruling by Mr Justice Richards is the first of its kind, made because the farmer has “an arguable case” that needs to be heard as a matter of urgency. Kindersley responded saying however: “This is not a time for celebration. For weeks, my wife and I and millions of other people have been appalled by the impending slaughter of a million or more animals as part of a policy that has demonstrably failed.”
