TWO law professors have concluded that the mass slaughter of animals during the foot-and-mouth crisis was illegal, inhumane and could happen again.

In a new report, professors David Campbell and Bob Lee of Cardiff Law School describe Government regulatory policies designed to tackle the spreading disease as “hopelessly inadequate” and say the contiguous cull was a “panic” response carried out in a climate of “lawlessness”.

They have also warned another outbreak of similar proportion could still happen.

The report states: “We reach the sad conclusion that few lessons have been learned from the outbreak, as the very practices largely responsible for the epidemic are still prevalent and legislation and contingency planning show signs of a preparedness merely to repeat the same mistakes.” The report - Carnage by Computer: The Blackboard Economics of the 2001 Foot and Mouth Epidemic – accuses the Government of implementing policy which worked perfectly in abstract on a computer screen in London but failed when applied on the ground hundreds of miles away.

See Farm and Country for the full story.