Page 14 - Hillside 2015 20th Anniversary Newsletter

2006 800 Rescued
Animals...

Bernard Matthews... Cuthbert... Cuthbert’s unbreakable bond

Since 2000, we had already filmed, and exposed, horrendous It was extremely touching to witness
‘living’ conditions for birds on Bernard Matthews’ farms. the strong bond between the Ross
However, in one of our most shocking investigations, our family and Cuthbert, a bullock they fell
investigator filmed turkeys on a Matthews’ farm being in love with, rescued and brought to
sadistically attacked with a wooden pole and then kicked. He Hillside in 2006. Every time they come
shot the damning evidence of staff ‘playing baseball’ with live to visit, even years later, Cuthbert has
turkeys while filming the general rough handling of birds as they not forgotten them, and comes running
were being caught for slaughter. The footage appeared on Sky with a bound to see his special friends.
and BBC news programmes all around the country and sparked
outrage from an indignant public. In response, the RSPCA
brought a prosecution against Daniel Palmer, 27, and Neil Allen,
30, both from Dereham in Norfolk. Their case was heard on
7th September 2006 when they pleaded guilty to charges of
causing unnecessary cruelty to animals. In court, their solicitor
blamed their cruel outburst on ‘peer pressure’ and the ‘culture’
at the farm. He said the footage, which was shown in court,
revealed the ‘appalling’ conditions at the plant.

Hillside Investigations feature in SIX
National TV Programmes...

In a successful year for Hillside’s ongoing investigations, our
footage was shown on SIX national TV programmes, including
BBC, Channel Four and Sky News.
With so many rescued animals to look after, we simply do
not have the resources to do all the campaigning work we
would like to but, instead, try to focus on producing filmed
evidence for people to see the reality of what goes on behind
the closed doors of the factory farming system.