CONVICTED (2024) | farmers Roger Keen, born June 1941, and wife Rosemary Keen, born September 1943, of Sandridge Farm, Bromham, Chippenham SN15 2JL – for allowing the systematic neglect and abuse of pigs and piglets on their farm.
The couple’s company Roger Keen Farms Ltd was fined £25,000 after pleading guilty to multiple animal welfare breaches. This followed a prosecution by Wiltshire Council.
Council animal health officers visited the farm in August 2021, with a Senior Veterinary Inspector (SVI) from the Animal & Plant Health Agency, where they discovered 15 pigs with health issues.
The SVI requested five of them were put down that day.
A post-mortem found joint lesions in four of the five animals were chronic nature and were believed to have been present for a number of days, causing a ‘considerable degree of suffering in live animals’,
Upon interview by officers, Roger Keen blamed employees for the failings at the farm, but evidence suggested overcrowding was among the major contributing factors, as well as a lack of experienced staff.
The farm stopped keeping pigs in 2022.
Sophia Hepple, from the Royal College of Veterinary Science Specialist in Animal Welfare Science, Ethics and Law acted as expert witness for the prosecution.
In her statement she said: “Mr Keen was responsible for multiple counts of permitting unnecessary suffering to pigs under his care and responsibility. The housing and accommodation were dirty, unhygienic and there were multiple examples of where there were unnecessary risks of injury or disease risk within the accommodation, due to lack of action to fix things promptly or to remove things promptly.
“There was lack of environmental enrichment for the pigs, serious cases of tail biting, ear biting and cannibalism, yet no clear evidence to justify tail docking, because there were no records being kept of tail biting incidents, causes nor attempts to improve the environment for the pigs to try and reduce such incidents occurring.
“One of the most serious issues was failure to take prompt action on ill and injured animals, including isolation into more appropriate hospital environments when necessary, treatment when necessary and a complete failure to seek veterinary advice or to cull the animals promptly when such animals failed to improve.
“Animals were allowed to suffer unnecessarily for weeks, with no clear decision making being taken on chronically ill or injured pigs. Even when directly requested to euthanise animals by the APHA, staff appeared to avoid doing this.”