A chilling sound system blares the unsettling cries of wolves as a lamb, clearly in distress, attempts to leap over a metal barrier at an English slaughterhouse. The frightened animal struggles on the blood-slicked floor, frantically trying to escape the slaughterman poised to end its life with a sharp knife.

The lamb’s desperate bleating echoes as it repeatedly slips, only to be dragged back for the fatal cut. Despite still showing signs of life, the worker proceeds to sever its legs just two minutes later, illustrating a scene of profound cruelty.

This harrowing reality was exposed by a hidden camera placed by an animal rights activist inside the abattoir located in a Warwickshire village. According to a report from university researchers who analyzed the footage, hundreds of lambs suffered “intense pain and distress,” often being violently thrown against doors, walls, and floors before facing a brutal end.

The video also captured a luxury limousine, owned by one of the abattoir workers, parked outside with a personalized license plate featuring the word ‘halal.’ The appalling treatment of animals at this facility, which supplied halal meat, sparked a police investigation, led to the dismissal of three employees, and resulted in the closure of the establishment.

Joey Carbstrong, the activist behind the undercover footage, emphasized that his intention was to expose animal cruelty rather than target Islam. His actions followed complaints from local residents about the foul odor emanating from the abattoir and the harrowing cries of the 1,000 animals delivered there weekly.

This month, the distressing video has resurfaced on social media, reigniting debates over religious slaughter practices. The newly established right-wing group, Restore Britain, has called for a complete ban on such practices, while public figures have voiced concerns about this method of killing in a nation renowned for its animal welfare ethos.

John Cleese, the actor most famous for the 1970s sitcom Fawlty Towers, also entered the fray by calling for footage of halal slaughter to be sent to him. This followed his views posted on X last month: ‘Halal slaughter runs ­contrary to old established British principles about not torturing animals.’ He added: ‘This sadistic way of killing ­animals runs ­completely counter to our most decent instincts. It should not be legal in the UK.’

This week, social media users, including myself, responded by sending John Cleese a copy of Joey’s film, which is now trending on X. It is stoking an ongoing debate on how meat arrives on our table, amid the growing ­realisation that much of it is slaughtered in a manner dictated by Islamic religious tradition.

Undercover footage from a halal abattoir shows terrified sheep being thrown around and abused

The footage shows a sheep being thrown against a wall by the staff at the abattoir

Of the one billion farm animals killed in England and Wales ­during 2024, approximately one in five – or just over 200million – were killed by halal methods. This ­represents 20 per cent of the total, even though the Muslim ­population in England and Wales is nearer 7 per cent.

Crucially, while it is a legal requirement to electronically stun all animals and render them unconscious before slaughter, there is an exemption for Muslim as well as Jewish communities, in recognition of their religious demands that the animal should be alive when its throat is cut, so that it dies as the blood drains from its body (the consumption of blood is ­forbidden in Islam).

The majority of halal slaughterhouses do stun the animals – although critics claim the ­slaughtermen use a lower voltage than that employed in regular stunning, to ensure the animal is not dead before its throat is cut.

The critics maintain that this means the animals can regain full ­consciousness after 20 seconds, then struggle and feel pain while they are slaughtered.

Meanwhile, the Food Standards Agency says the demand for non-stunned halal meat is rising, and accounts for almost one in three halal sheep – the most popular meat among the Muslim population – dying while conscious and aware of what is going on.

In all, an estimated 30 million animals, including chickens, goats and cattle, were slaughtered ­without being stunned in 2024, a total that is rising to match demand from an increasingly devout young Islamic population in this country.

The halal food industry controls 15 per cent of the total UK meat market, turning over two billion pounds a year at wholesale prices. This has raised concerns that meat from Muslim slaughterhouses is slipping into the general food chain without ­people knowing.

There are also claims that halal meat is being sold in super­markets without adequate ­labelling as to the method of slaughter. One social media ­commentator complained about his experience when he went to his local High Street supermarket this week to buy some chicken: ‘It had a red Union Jack on it ­(meaning it was reared in Britain) and had a Red Tractor (animal welfare) certification on the ­package. But when I checked the code it turned out to be halal.’

The majority of halal slaughterhouses do stun the animals – although critics claim the slaughtermen use a lower voltage than that employed in regular stunning, to ensure the animal is not dead before its throat is cut

There are claims that halal meat is being sold in supermarkets without adequate labelling as to the method of slaughter

The way halal meat gets to our super­market shelves and into many state school meals, NHS hospitals and public-sector workers’ menus has long been a bugbear of Rupert Lowe, MP for Great Yarmouth.

He launched his Restore Britain party earlier this month after ­sitting as an independent in ­Parliament following an unedifying departure from Nigel Farage’s Reform UK, and announced that one of its key demands – along with the automatic deportation of illegal immigrants and foreign criminals – is a total ban on all religious slaughter in Britain.

Lowe succeeded last year in ­successfully asking for halal meat to be taken off the staff menu at his local hospital.

He said at the time: ‘All across the country in abattoirs, we’re allowing vile practices that would turn the stomach of any decent person. Millions of Brits are ­eating halal meat against their will, and ­without their knowledge, due to our deceitful labelling system. Halal meat is seeping into the food chain.’

His demands prompted the ­Muslim Council of Britain to warn that the end of halal killings would prompt an exodus of its many ­religious followers from the UK. Conservative MP Esther McVey explained in House of Commons on Tuesday why the meat was so prevalent: ‘non-stunned’ meat is cheaper and therefore, ‘supermarkets and food outlets can purchase that cheaper meat without ever declaring it to the customer… Non-stunned produce is being used by 17 local councils in schools, the majority of which are not Islamic faith schools, without parents or children having the first idea about it.’

She has called for a law to label halal and kosher meat so people can decide not to eat it, adding: ‘Individuals concerned about animal welfare would want to know if an animal had been stunned prior to slaughter.’

Whether a dying animal is stunned or not, an Islamic prayer is said over the dying creature by the slaughterman in line with the strictures of the Koran.

Meanwhile, another three ­million animals are killed annually for the Jewish meat market. The religion insists no ­animal is stunned and uses a slaughter ­process known as ­’shechita’. ­Similar to halal ­killings, it involves a rapid cut with a razor-sharp blade across the neck of a live ­animal.

John Cleese posted on X last month: ‘Halal slaughter runs contrary to old established British principles about not torturing animals.’

Activist Joey Carbstrong has insisted the footage was obtained to highlight animal cruelty, rather than stigmatise Islam

It has to be said, halal slaughter or shechita is far from the only ­animal welfare issue plaguing the British meat industry.

Over the first six months of 2025, more than 356,000 ­chickens, ­cattle, pigs, and sheep suffered on farms, on the way to slaughter, and in the ­abattoirs themselves, according to veterinary ­inspection logs recently released by the Food Standards Agency. These involved chickens freezing to death during the journey to the abattoir, animals arriving with broken legs, open wounds, blinded in both eyes and so weak they are ­unable to stand. In one incident, cows in the late stage of pregnancy arrived at slaughterhouses where they gave birth.

One vet’s report obtained by investigative journalists at Wicked Leeks explained: ‘The newborn was stunned with a ­captive bolt gun, then disposed of (in an ­incinerator or sent for pet food). The mother, searching for her newborn, was put in the slaughter line.’

When it comes to halal food, much slaughter of animals for the Islamic community is overseen by a charity called the Halal ­Monitoring Committee (HMC), which decries stunning. It includes a sharia board of ­Muslim clerics to give guidance on what is deemed halal or not. The charity said last year that ­independent research showed a majority of British ­Muslims – seven in ten – prefer to eat non-stunned animals.

An HMC spokesman explained: ‘We have one main aim. We want all Muslims to be confident and be assured that the meat they are eating is genuinely halal. It is one of the most important tenets of our faith, without which our prayers are at risk and said to remain unanswered.’

To add to the bitter debate, a halal-certified abattoir in Wakefield, West Yorkshire, hit the headlines recently when it refused to allow FSA officials onto the premises to make hygiene ­inspections twice in one year.

At a later court case, the firm was fined £62,800, although it is believed to be still operating. This punishment was condemned by commentators who alleged ‘soft touch’ inspectors are giving halal abattoirs an easy ride for fear of being accused of Islamophobia.

Whatever the truth of this, ­Britain is an outlier on halal slaughter compared with the rest of Europe. Denmark, Norway, ­Belgium, ­Slovenia, Iceland, ­Sweden, Luxembourg, Greece, Finland, and Switzerland have banned outright all killings ­without stunning on grounds of animal welfare.

A parliamentary petition calling for a ban on ‘barbaric’ non-stun slaughter collected 109,000 ­signatures last year. It led to a House of Commons debate after which the Labour Government issued a statement saying: ‘We would prefer all animals to be stunned before slaughter. ­However, we respect the rights of Jews and Muslims to eat meat ­prepared in accordance with their religious beliefs.’

Britain’s most famous animal welfare charity, the RSPCA, added its voice to the debate, demanding UK law is amended to end all non-stun slaughter ­whatever the ­preferences of ­religious groups, so animals ‘don’t feel pain, suffering, or distress’ when they are killed.

After animal activist Joey ­Carbstrong made his undercover abattoir film, he showed it to a group of Muslims. They reacted with disgust at the sight of lambs being dismembered while alive.

The young people, some of them female and wearing hijabs, were aghast by what they were shown.

‘Oh my God’, says one girl in her 20s putting her hands to her face in shock. ‘That’s disgusting’, added another. ‘It is impossible, a bloodbath. That isn’t halal, it is disgusting, it is haram ­[forbidden],’ shouted a third.

One woman viewer says, as she begins to weep: ‘The animal is running for its life. This idiot [slaughterman] is making fun of the lambs when they are screaming. It is suffering, it is murder.’

As Carbstrong says about the same undercover footage: ‘Whether you are a Muslim or not, it is time to agree this is wrong. They think eating halal means everything is fine, that the ­animals have a happy time, that you say a prayer, and the animal says go ahead and take my life. It’s not true’.

There is no doubt, whatever their religious belief, many in modern Britain would agree with him.