VIDEO: Morrisons respond to 'Save' campaigners in vigil at Pinchbeck slaughterhouse

Campaigners from the Spalding and Peterborough Save movement were videoing animals as they were taken in trucks to slaughter this morning.

A dozen people were on Pinchbeck's Enterprise Way with placards.

Each time a truck approached Woodhouse Brothers, the campaigners walked alongside holding up selfie-sticks to video the animals as a way of making welfare checks.

One member said: "We are all part of the Save movement. It started two or three years ago in Toronto, Canada, and it's now an international movement

"We hold vigils at slaughterhouses like this and we try to get the truck drivers to stop for two or three minutes so we can offer comfort and some degree of compassion to the animals.

"Most of the animals going in here are 'babies', it's six-months-old for pigs."

Another member of the group said footage of the animals is posted to social media.

Members said they have videoed incidents where animals have had injuries, including one where a cow had a horn completely torn off, but haven't so far seen injured animals at Pinchbeck.

Police twice visited the vigil - once when the press were there, when an officer told the campaigners they must not walk in the road and cause an obstruction.

The Save group mount monthly vigils at the Pinchbeck slaughterhouse and across the country.

One campaigner said they have come to an agreement with all the other businesses about what they can do at a vigil - but so far not with Woodhouse Brothers or Morrisons.

A Morrisons spokeswoman said: "We give hauliers the option to stop but ask protesters not to block the public highway - at the request of the police.

"All of our operations are in accordance with the industry standards for animal welfare. The whole of our process is under supervision of Food Standard Authority vets and we have continuous CCTV monitoring - with footage made available to the FSA."