Calls have been made in the past to close the Red Lion abbatoir after footage of cruelty to horses was released to the media
A slaughterhouse owned by a family with business connections to Dundalk has been named in a Guardian investigation into the horsemeat scandal, which rocked Europe 10 months ago.
In an investigation into ABP, which is owned by local millionaire Larry Goodman and supplied meat to the likes of Tesco, Aldi and Burger King, the British newspaper discovered that the company had bought some of its meat from a Dutch businessman called Willy Selten, who ran a meat cutting plant in the town of Oss, south of Rotterdam.
The investigation by the British newspaper followed a trail from Selten’s Dutch factory back to a key source of its horsemeat in the UK. Journalist Felicity Lawrence said that Selten took deliveries from a Cheshire-based slaughterhouse known as Red Lion.
It is owned by the Turner family, who slaughter and cut horsemeat and own a cargo handling company in Dundalk.
According to Ms Lawrence: “Before the horsemeat scandal broke, an animal sanctuary planted hidden cameras in key parts of the plant and filmed its Polish slaughtermen apparently abusing horses, and it became the subject of protests.
“By sourcing data from campaigners about lorry movements from the abattoir, we were able to establish that it had delivered to the Dutch business.
“Polish workers at Selten’s factory confirmed that Red Lion lorries arrived once a week. The Red Lion slaughtermen’s licences were suspended and they are still being investigated by the authorities.
“There is evidence that suggests horsemeat at the Red Lion abattoir came via a route involving organised crime. Two separate sources involved with enforcement have told us that Red Lion was the final destination of deliveries of animals from a loyalist Northern Irish horse dealer, Laurence McAllister.
“He was tracked transporting unfit horses and donkeys, some without passports, from Northern Ireland via Scotland for disposal in the UK. His return load on one journey to Belfast was a quantity of cannabis worth more than £500,000, which was concealed in horse lorries. He was found guilty in October 2012 of drug smuggling and later of animal cruelty offences. Some of the horses he had been transporting were sick with chest infections, wounds, diarrhoea and sepsis.
“A spokesman for the Turner family insisted that all their horsemeat deliveries to Selten had been properly labeled as horse and were legal. He at first denied but later acknowledged that one horse sent to Selten had been the subject of a recall having tested positive for ‘bute’, the horsemeat drug banned from the food chain. Tests for bute were taking three weeks at the time, so carcasses were often only recalled once they had already been sold on. The family through their lawyer, initially denied that horse had ever been bought by the abattoir from McAllister. Their lawyer later clarified the family’s position, saying that while they had never knowingly received horses from McAllister, it was possible they had bought from him indirectly without knowing. They had never knowingly slaughtered unfit horses or horses without proper passports, he added, pointing out that horses were only processed once they and their documents had been passed by official inspectors. There is no suggestion that the Turner family or employees at Red Lion had any involvement in drug smuggling.”
DL Turner & Son Limited has a registered trading address at 27 Seatown Place in Dundalk and was founded by William and Valerie Turner in August 1998. Current directors are listed as Valerie Turner and Anne Frances Boyd.
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Source: Where did the 29% horse in your Tesco burger come from? (The Guardian)
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