A FARMER has been fined £6,000 after selling two animals which could have had mad cow disease to a Cheshire abattoir, a court was told.

Quick-thinking vets at Malpas County Meats in Hampton prevented them from getting into the food chain and called in Trading Standards.

Chester magistrates fined Thomas Dutton and ordered him to pay £1,300 in court costs after he admitted changing his cows' identification ear-tags.

'He breached Government legislation brought in to stop the spread of BSE,' said Trading Standards prosecutor Peter Moore at this week's hearing.

'Cattle over 30 months old are likely to have the disease and should not be put into the food chain. Each animal has an ear-tag with an identification number and date of birth.'

In February last year, an inspector at the abattoir became suspicious of a cow presented for slaughter. After investigating the animal's history, the inspector discovered that it and one other had been brought in by beef farmer Dutton, of Norbridge Farm, Market Drayton, Shropshire.

Further assessments revealed that one cow was probably 40 months old while the other was at least 36 months old. But they both had makeshift ear-tags with false dates of birth which indicated they were not yet 30 months.

Dutton, who lives with his wife and four children aged four, six, seven and eight, pleaded guilty to two Trade Descriptions Act offences of applying false descriptions to his cattle.

His solicitor, Kate Walters, told the court that the cows' original tags had fallen off at a time when Dutton's finances were 'getting on top of him'.

She said: 'The tags dropped off and it would have taken weeks for new ones to arrive. Somebody at the abattoir had told him it would be all right if he made some himself.

'He referred to his paperwork and it was a mix-up which led to him putting the wrong numbers on the tags.

'It was just after Christmas and Dutton had just received his credit card bills, which he couldn't pay. Usually, he pays his balance off in full and he was not used to being in that situation.'

Mrs Walters said that since the investigation, Dutton had gone to great efforts to make sure the same mistake did not happen again and all the animals on his farm were now on a computer system.