FSA prosecutes abattoir for its help in emergency

During the 1990s, when Britain's abattoirs were forced out of business in droves by the crippling expense of complying with our government's fanatical enforcement of European Union "meat hygiene" directives (which even the government eventually admitted had little to do with hygiene), the only slaughterhouse in Monmouthshire which survived was that in Raglan, run by William James and his family.

There was no way they could afford to pay #63 an hour for a government vet to hang around all day contributing nothing to food safety. To stay in business they had to opt for a "low throughput" licence, restricting them to only 20 "EU livestock units" a week (they had previously been killing up to 1,000).

But under Bill James's son Neil, they showed the kind of enterprise which has enabled others to survive, by concentrating on quality meat from rare breeds and organic farms which has built up a flourishing new business with local butchers and farmers' markets.

When the foot and mouth epidemic erupted in 2001, Monmouthshire's farmers and vets were only too grateful that the Raglan abattoir had survived. Animal movement restrictions had faced them with a welfare crisis. The only place to which healthy animals could be moved was a slaughterhouse and, to the delight of ministry officials, the Jameses came to the rescue.

After spending thousands of pounds on equipment necessary to comply with biosecurity rules, they were soon working flat out to meet the crisis, even though this sometimes meant slightly exceeding their weekly limit. But everyone was happy, including the Meat Hygiene Service (MHS), part of Sir John Krebs's Food Standards Agency (FSA), which stamped the meat as fit to eat.

More than a year after the crisis was over, however, Bill James was astonished to be summoned on a string of criminal charges. He was to be prosecuted by the FSA for having several times during the crisis killed a few more animals than his licence allowed - even though he had only done so with full official support, including that of Wales's rural affairs minister, Carwyn Jones, and the MHS's own inspectors. Apparently the FSA hierarchy was now afraid that it might face legal action from the EU's Food and Veterinary Office for not having strictly enforced the terms of Mr James's licence.

Last month, when Mr James explained to Newport magistrates why he had exceeded his limit, they gave him a conditional discharge, and ordered him to pay only #250 of the #2,268 costs demanded by the FSA's barrister, Ian Thomas. Mr Thomas pompously observed that the laws that Mr James had broken were only there to ensure that hygiene standards were not endangered; scarcely relevant since the MHS had certified all the meat as perfectly safe to eat.

So, at 74, Mr James has a criminal record for committing a technical offence, which could only be seen as such by some frightened bureaucrat, and which he had only committed to help the community in a way which had the approval of all the officials involved.

J JONES, Robert (Reg. NO. 656)
Private 2nd Battalion 24th Regiment (later South Wales Borderers
London Gazetted on 2nd May 1879
Born on 19th August 1857 at Raglan, Monmouthshire.
Died on 6th September 1898 of gunshot wounds* at Madley, Herefordshire.
Memorial at grave* at St Peter's Church, Peterchurch, Herefordshire.
Citation reads
On 22nd and 23rd January 1879 at Rorke's Drift, Natal, South Africa, in a ward, of the hospital. facing the hill, Private Robert Jones and Private William Jones (Reg. NO.659) defended the ward to the last, until six out of the seven patients had been removed. The seventh, Sergeant Robert Maxfield of the 2nd Battalion, 24th Regiment, was delirious and although they managed to get him dressed, they could not induce him to move and when they returned to carry him away he was being stabbed to death, by Zulus in his bed.
Additional information: Private Robert Jones S/No 716 enlisted in the 24th Regt. Around August 1875. He joined the 2nd Battn. at Dover on 10th January,1876. After the Zulu War he went with the Regiment to India. He left the Army as a reservist
He got employment as a farm labourer, marrying Elizabeth Hopkins in 1885 and having five children.On the 6th September 1898, he had borrowed his employers gun and gone off to shoot crows. He was found dead from shot-gun wounds.
The coroners verdict was suicide as he had been complaining of headaches. He had suffered from nightmares since Rorke's Drift and taking this into consideration the Coroner returned a verdict of suicide. His family disputed this verdict.
At his funeral,he was allowed to be buried in the churchyard of St Peter's, Peterchurch but only after the coffin had been passed over the wall. His gravestone,because he was a suicide, his tombstone faces the opposite direction to the others interred there.
(For more details on Robert Jones, visit www.rorkesdriftvc.com)