A CATTLE dealer who tried to put an elderly animal into the human food chain by swapping its ear tags with those of a younger cow has been warned he could be sent to prison.

Stephen Helliwell, 55, was found guilty at Carlisle Crown Court of fraudulently using a 12-year-old friesian’s eartag on a 14-year-old red limousin.

His actions meant that people could have ended up eating meat from the older cow when – under laws designed to prevent the spread of CJD - it should not have been allowed into the food chain.

The charge stated that on or about April 13 last year he knowingly made a false statement when sending a limousin bovine for slaughter at an abattoir in Sheffield, in that it was too old to enter the human food chain.

Helliwell, of Cowperthwaite Farm, Lowgill, near Kendal, had pleaded not guilty, saying the ear tags must have been swapped accidentally.

Unknown to the jury he had previously admitted other offences involving the unlicensed transportation of livestock.

He will be sentenced for all the offences on February 24.

The judge, Recorder John Altham, warned him he could go to jail.

“You should be under no illusions – this is a serious matter and the court will be considering custody,” he told him.

“It is made more serious by the fact that it could have resulted in the putting into the food chain of a potentially dangerous animal. That is an aggravating feature because of the possible consequences to public health.”

During the trial the jury heard how the eartag was taken from a friesian after the animal had been transported to Helliwell’s 25-acre farm from Andrew Jarman’s farm at Branthwaite, Workington.

The cow died of natural causes that night, but by the next day its eartag had been put on the older limousin, which had been collected from Andrew Bailey’s farm at Crook of Lune, near Kendal, and which was then taken to an abattoir in Sheffield.

It was only when a vet at the abattoir became suspicious and started investigating, that the true picture became clear – while the friesian, born in January 1997, would have been young enough for the food chain, the limousin, born in March 1995, would not.

In evidence Helliwell, who has been involved in farming for 30 years, said that when the friesian came into his possession it had not been wearing its ear tags.

Instead, he said, farmer’s wife Mrs Judith Jarman had given him the tags in an envelope.

He was planning to re-tag the beast before taking it to the slaughterhouse but that night it died of natural causes in the pen at his farm.

On the same day, he said, he had taken possession of Mr Bailey’s limousin, but he did not know if it was properly tagged when it arrived.

He was planning to shoot this animal, because he knew it was too old for the slaughterhouse, he said.

The next day, he said, the limousin was taken to the abattoir by mistake, and the friesian’s ear tags were also taken in the lorry erroneously.

Asked if he had deliberately swap the ear tags, he replied: “No, I did not.”