By Carl Johnston as published on BBC
“I am in no doubt that they were entering the food chain and being passed off as beef…”
Thousands of tonnes of horsemeat probably entered the food chain in the three years before last year’s food crisis, according to a frontbench Labour MP.
Mary Creagh, who was shadow environment secretary at the time of the scandal, says she has evidence which proves criminals substituted horsemeat for beef on a massive scale.
The discovery of horsemeat in processed beef products sold by a number of UK supermarket chains last year resulted in a series of product recalls.
“The number of horses slaughtered in Britain has halved over the past year – so what that tells you is probably 50% of the horses that were being slaughtered in 2010, 2011 and 2012 were destined for some sort of criminal meat trade,” Ms Creagh told BBC Radio 4’s File on 4 programme.
The official government figures show that in 2009, there were 5,100 horses slaughtered. In 2010 there were 8,854, in 2011 there were 9,011 and in 2012 there were 9,405.
That figure, for the 11 months of 2013 following the crisis, fell by more than half to 4,505.
“There are [now] much stricter checks in abattoirs and the paperwork is being checked a lot more carefully. Veterinary inspectors are alive to the potential for horses to have more than one microchip in their neck and it is no longer in the interest of would-be criminals to take the risk of getting caught,” said Ms Creagh, now shadow transport secretary.
She added that the number of slaughterhouses approved to kill horses in the UK had also fallen, from seven in January 2013 to a current total of four.
“The anecdotal evidence from animal welfare charities is that there was a huge increase in the number of abandoned horses, there was a huge increase in horse passport fraud and there was a huge increase in horse slaughter.”
There was a glut of unwanted horses after the 2008 financial crisis, with people no longer able to afford to keep a horse.
“They were horses that may have been treated with bute [a drug given to horses], had fresh chips put in their heads and new passports written for them – so they were being cleaned… and then taken to slaughter.
“Not all of those horses I think were exported, some of them may have stayed in the UK. I am in no doubt that they were entering the food chain and being passed off as beef,” Ms Creagh said.
The National Audit Office has already criticised the government, suggesting it should have picked up on “warning signs” as long ago as 2010…(CONTINUED)
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Categories: Horse News, Horse Slaughter
Straight from the Horse's Heart 
All these animals were killed for nothing, makes me sick, needless deaths. the meat recalled gotten rid of, all those who suffered at the hands of the slaughter houses, the ones who did this should be punished to the highest level they can do it to them.
Greed and money hungry A holes.
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When there are no abattoirs and no horse meat ever, anywhere, we who love horses can rest, but not before.
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REST? Elaine, horse advocates will be busier than ever! We will have another 150K horse per year to rescue/rehab/ retrain/ re-home.
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Where do they think some of the horse meat came from? How about the good USA. If they followed the EU regulations perhaps this would not be happening. Crooks always have connections. Sorry to say horses that arrived at slaughterlants with microchips simply had them cut out. Feed lots will do the same. We need stricker laws in this country when it comes to auctions and horse sales. There should be a veterinarian who has no connections to the auction, sales or area horse people reviewing the horses and checking over paper work. Horses being presented should all be evaluated and not left up to management at these sales. A call and written documentation should be taken from the last veterinarian attending the horse. If not available the horse should be immediately removed from the sale or auction. If adequate procedures were in place I think many of the crooks would be caught and prosecuted. Do the Europeans really think horse meat is safe? Get a life! After all the scandal and publicity surrounding horse slaughter here and over seas, they still consume horse meat. It should be banned world wide. Perhaps this may be a solution. But in some third world countries people eat anything. Our best case scenario here is for our congressional members to get off their asses and pass their “safe act” which would prevent slaughterhouses from opening here and our equines being sent out of our country. I read another sick article that talked about pmu foals being slaughtered and sold as pony skins. Talk about a very sick world…
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Speaking of pony skins there is a FB site called Saddled and Ready. One of their advertisements is for ponyskin. How awful is that?
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@Gail, The PMU foals have always been done like this along with the foals of nurse mares. i believe that the over breeding of horses here in the US would eventually stop if horse slaughter was brought to a screeching halt with the passage of S.541 and H.R.1094. There was 4 more cosponsors added to the list which now has 167 cosponsors in the House but no more than 28 or 30 in the Senate. These Senators will not cosponsor any bill that would stop horse slaughter because of the money that the racing industry shells out to many of them to not allow any anti-horse slaughter bill ever see the light of day.
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