Historic ruling: owners and an employee of an intensive farm convicted of animal abuse
This is one of the few convictions for animal abuse in a farm setting ever issued in Italy. The ruling was handed down by the Reggio Emilia Court in a case arising from a complaint filed by us.
The trial concluded on 16 January with a first-instance conviction for the crime of animal abuse under Article 544-ter of the Italian Criminal Code, following our legal action.
In September 2020, we released shocking video footage documenting acts of violence against pigs at a farm located in the province of Reggio Emilia. We were admitted as a civil party in the proceedings before the Reggio Emilia Court.
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The shocking footage
The farm was found to be a supplier of the company Fratelli Beretta. After the images were made public, the company terminated all supply relationships with the farm.
The footage was filmed by a farm worker, who secretly recorded the abuse using a hidden camera and then contacted us.
The case gained significant national attention, with the images also broadcast in a report by TG1, Italy’s national public television news programme.
For over ten years, we have been exposing the hidden reality of intensive farming systems that feed Italy’s Made in Italy supply chains, revealing how criminal offences are frequently committed in violation of existing regulations.
A turning point for animal protection
The ruling of the Reggio Emilia Court can be considered historic because, in addition to restoring at least partial justice for animals in farming systems, it represents one of the very few convictions of this kind in Italy.
Our experience confirms how widespread abuse is within national supply chains, which is why we hope this ruling will serve as a warning to the entire Italian livestock sector.
We will continue to expose all forms of suffering that constitute criminal offences, in order to ensure concrete protection for animals, as already provided for by the Italian Constitution.
Our court battle
A farm worker, a company partner and a managing partner were convicted of animal abuse in relation to several incidents showing pigs being kicked, beaten with blunt objects, and lifted off the ground by their ears.
The court also recognised the crime of animal abuse in relation to several illegal emergency killings carried out by a farm worker and a managing partner in violation of the law.
Emergency killing may be carried out on farm animals in order to avoid unnecessary suffering, but the law requires that animals must first be effectively stunned and then bled.
Instead, at this farm, several incidents were contested in which pigs were stunned with a captive-bolt gun but not bled, causing a slow and painful death.
© Essere Animali
The defendants were sentenced as follows:
- the worker: six months’ imprisonment, with a suspended sentence;
- the managing partner: four months’ imprisonment;
- the company partner: a €4,000 fine.
In addition, the court ordered a six-month suspension of activities involving the transport, trade and farming of animals, as well as compensation for damages and the reimbursement of legal costs in our favour.
The judicial process
Following our complaint, three individuals were brought to trial at the preliminary hearing stage: a farm worker, a company partner and a managing partner. They were charged with unauthorised practice of the veterinary profession (Article 348 of the Criminal Code), animal abuse (Article 544-ter), and keeping animals in conditions incompatible with their nature and causing severe suffering (Article 727).
With regard to the charge of unauthorised veterinary practice (Article 348), relating to an episode showing the extraction of the incisors of an adult pig, one defendant was acquitted, as such an operation may in itself be performed by non-veterinary staff if properly trained.
However, since the procedure was carried out in violation of legal requirements, including the failure to administer legally required anaesthesia for adult pigs, the conduct remained among those contested as animal abuse.
© Essere Animali
The offence of keeping animals in incompatible conditions causing severe suffering (Article 727), which we had raised in relation to the severe hygienic and sanitary conditions at the farm — including slurry and faeces present in the feeding troughs — was declared time-barred.
The trial therefore continued solely on the charge of animal abuse, brought against all three defendants, and concluded after nearly two years and more than ten hearings, during which several workers and former employees testified, including one witness now residing in Romania.
A result achieved only through collaboration
A decisive role in securing the conviction for animal abuse was played by the testimony of the worker who filmed the abuse and by our veterinary medical expert, who also submitted an expert report.
It was established that, in the contested incidents, at least one of the two legal elements required for the crime of animal abuse was present: cruelty, understood as the deliberate infliction of suffering due to insensitivity and/or lack of necessity. This excludes situations in which killing an animal is considered the only way to avert an imminent danger, which the law recognises as a justification.