TWO Whitchurch men will enter pleas after being charged with illegally using a cattle prod against animals at a Chester abattoir when they attend court in November.

Matthew Arden, 32 and of Fields View, Burleydam and 48-year-old Paul May, of Belton Road, in Whitchurch, will appear at Chester Magistrates Court on Friday, November 11 after a hearing scheduled for Friday, September 2 was adjourned.

They are charged with a number of counts of harming the animals in their care. Neither have yet entered pleas.

It is alleged that both men, working at the G & G B Hewitt Abattoir site in Huxley, Chester, applied an electric goad, otherwise known as a cattle prod, to bovine animals at the site, plus other ill-treatment of the animals.

Arden is charged with five counts, all taking place on February 9, 2021, including contravention of EU regulations relating to pain, three charges of failing to comply with slaughterhouse rules and failing to ensure proper use of guiding instrument on animal at a slaughterhouse.

May is charged with three of the same counts, plus failure to move an animal with care on April 21, 2021.

It is alleged the two men, who are part of a wider prosecution, “failed to ensure that an instrument intended for guiding an animal was used solely for that purpose” and “only for short periods on individual animals in that you repeatedly applied an electric goad to the hindquarters, back and other areas of a bovine animal”.

The charge sheet also claims that while moving a bovine animal through the race to the restraining box, the men “regularly prodded it with the pointed end of a goad and stick”.

Arden is accused of twisting the tail of a bovine animal because it would not move through to a resting box, while May faces charges of causing a bovine animal distress by forcing to move backwards to where he needed it to be.

The charges are thought to relate to a secret investigation where cameras recorded what is claimed to be the evidence of animal suffering and abuse at the Huxley-based abattoir.

This, according to reports, led to an investigation by the Food Standards Agency after receiving the secret recordings via an animal rights group.

There are five men co-accused: Joseph Arden, Nathan Grubey, Mark Hewitt, Gerald Hewitt and Stephen Mayren.