No prosecution for labs in UK foot-and-mouth outbreak
No legal action can be taken against the animal health laboratories at the centre of last summer’s foot and mouth outbreak, Surrey County Council in England said today.
The local authority said it had received legal advice it could not bring a prosecution against either the Institute of Animal Health (IAH) or private company Merial which share the site at Pirbright, Surrey because of a lack of evidence.
Livestock on eight farms in the Surrey area were infected with foot-and-mouth in August and September last year, probably due to live FMD virus being used to develop a vaccine leaking from faulty pipework and spreading from the site.
A series of government-commissioned reports were unable to pinpoint the exact source of the outbreak, which cost the UK farming industry millions of pounds.
Surrey County Council examined the possibility of bringing a prosecution on the grounds that the labs had breached their licence conditions by allowing the disease to escape.
But even if experts had been able to say exactly how the virus had been released, the council could not prove conclusively which lab had breached their licence because they shared the drainage system at the site.
The council called for tougher measures which would ensure that where two laboratories shared facilities, one should have ultimate responsibility and accountability for the site.
Officials said they also wanted to see individual directors held accountable and maximum fines increased from £5,000 (€6,300) or up to six months’ imprisonment to reflect the seriousness of the situation.
The council was, until last month when the role was taken on by the British Health and Safety Executive (HSE), responsible for investigating and taking action over possible breaches of the licence given to the labs to use animal diseases.
Peter Denard, Surrey County Council’s trading standards manager, said: “Because the two laboratories share the same facilities on the site, it hasn’t been possible to pinpoint who was responsible for the outbreak.
“The government needs to make sure in these circumstances one laboratory is held accountable, and that is what we’re calling for now.
“In addition, we believe individual directors of the facilities should be held accountable and the maximum fine should be significantly increased to reflect the seriousness of the offence.”
He said there was no evidence any individual directors were accountable in this case.
The most recent inquiry into last year’s outbreak, by Iain Anderson who led the review into the 2001 foot and mouth crisis, called for a clarity of responsibility and ownership at Pirbright.
He criticised the “creeping degradation of standards” at the site – which he labelled “shabby and dilapidated” – and criticised a number of bodies for the situation including regulator Defra and the IAH.
The National Farmers’ Union said the decision by the council not to prosecute was “understandable” given the need to establish beyond doubt that an operator had committed an offence.
A spokesman for the union said: “The foot-and-mouth outbreak had a massive effect on the local and national economy.
“The NFU is considering the potential civil liability of the two laboratories for the enormous damage sustained by farmers as a result of the virus escape.
“The IAH and Merial must not be allowed to hide behind unclear divisions of responsibility for the drainage system at Pirbright.
“We agree with the recommendations of the council – it must be absolutely clear who is accountable for the overall security and safety of sites where high containment facilities are shared.”
It has been estimated that last year’s foot-and-mouth outbreak cost somewhere in the region of £100m (€126.5m).
A spokeswoman for the British Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) said it was inappropriate for the department to comment on specific cases, which were a matter for the relevant trading standards department.
But she said the government had accepted and were implementing the recommendations of the review into the regulatory framework for handling animal diseases.
Inspections continued to take place at Pirbright to make sure the two labs had put in place all measures necessary to prevent a repeat of the outbreak, she said.
