A Nottinghamshire farmer will today face sentencing after pleading guilty to neglecting animals and breaching animal by-product regulations. The Nottinghamshire County Council’s Trading Standards team, which investigated Kieth James Littlewood’s farm in Bestwood, described the case as “the most horrific we have ever dealt with”.

Mr Littlewood, pleaded guilty to four breaches of animal by-product regulations, relating to failure to dispose of eight dead cows, one donkey and a number of pig and chicken carcasses, and eight breaches of the Animal Welfare Act, relating to cruelty and causing unnecessary suffering to three cows, 17 pigs and a dog.

The case was heard at Nottingham Magistrates’ Court in October, but was referred to the crown court for sentencing. Mr Littlewood could was given a 12 month prison sentence. Judge Michael Stokes QC, the Recorder of Nottingham, said: "I've never in my life seen anything as appalling that what I saw on the DVDs and photographs shown to me."

Trading Standards visited the farm in March 2011, following a call from a member of the public who was concerned about the welfare of animals on the premises; officers who went to the farm found the rotting carcases of “scores” of dead pigs, cows, poultry and a donkey in varying states of decay, starving animals with no access to food or water, some feeding on the carcases of dead animals, and a dog locked in a cubicle with no food and surrounded by faeces

There was evidence of attempts to incinerate animal carcases and animals had been left to roam the site in hazardous conditions.

Nottinghamshire Trading Standards Manager Nicola Schofield said, "The scenes the Council's Trading Standards and Animal Welfare officers were faced with when they arrived at White Haven Farm were absolutely horrendous. We are immensely grateful to the member of the public who reported this to us. Animals had clearly been mistreated for a long period and if the witness hadn't come forward, there is every chance that this cruelty would have gone on for much longer, increasing the chances of more animals dying and disease being spread from the carcases."