A farmer targeted by animal rights activists has been found dead days after evidence of horrific cruelty on his farm was revealed.
Stephen Brown, 52, is believed to have shot himself in a field after saying he was ‘absolutely gutted’ about the shocking exposé.
An undercover animal rights activist secretly filmed a worker on his Norfolk farm beating a pig to death with an iron bar, kicking piglets and smashing a live animal’s head on to a concrete floor.
Still photographs showed a worker aiming a powerful rifle at a sow and the apparently lifeless body in its pen.
The RSPCA described it as one of the worst cases of animal abuse it had seen and launched its own investigation after the secret footage was released by campaign group Animal Equality last weekend, and welfare and standards group Red Tractor suspended the farm from its quality assurance scheme.
There was no suggestion that Mr Brown was directly involved in the cruelty, but the film included footage of apparent long-term neglect and showed animals with large open sores and festering wounds.
Mr Brown gave an emotional interview to the BBC on Monday in which he said he was hit ‘very hard’ by the film, but claimed it had been ‘dramatised’.
He and his wife Fiona had been due to take their two daughters on a half-term ski trip but cancelled it after the video was released.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2101693/Pig-farmer-slammed-RSPCA-horrific-cruelty-animals-dead-suspected-suicide.html
More blood on the RSPCA's hands?
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