Foot-and-mouth man tagged

LONDON - The pig breeder whose farm is believed to have been the source of last year's foot-and-mouth outbreak has been placed under an overnight curfew enforced by electronic tagging as punishment for failing to reveal the disease's presence in his animals.

The tag will confine Bobby Waugh, 56, to his two-bedroom terraced house in Sunderland between 7pm and 8am for three months. He was banned from keeping farm animals for 15 years on the orders of a district judge at a Northumberland magistrate's court.

In May, at the end of a three-week criminal trial, Judge James Prowse had convicted Waugh of animal cruelty and failing to reveal the presence of foot-and-mouth.

Prowse told Waugh yesterday that he could have been jailed for the animal cruelty offences.

The judge said he had reminded himself during the case that Waugh was not standing trial for being the source of the foot-and-mouth outbreak. "You are not to be a scapegoat for what happened after," he said.

"But I am going to impose a curfew order with electronic monitoring.

"It is a form of house arrest but on the other hand it does not take all your liberty away."

Waugh was also given six months to pay £10,000 ($31,500) to the prosecution costs of Northumberland County Council, whose trading standards department brought the case.

- INDEPENDENT

Feature: Foot-and-mouth disaster

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