The Horror that is Hartshead Meats

 

Tears were streaming down my face as I walked over the hill to join the peaceful protesters outside Hartshead Meats yesterday (8th May 2026).

The place is a kosher and halal meat slaughter house; the actual abattoir being hidden inside the confines of a scrap metal company – P. Mullaney and Sons Ltd. I, along with all the other locals, had no idea this was an abattoir. Been here since 2011 it seems. A river of blood and gore flowing down the road towards the village of Mossley, was what alerted us. An investigator managed to get inside the killing shed and filmed what was going on. His video is too graphic for most people. Cows being kicked in the head, screaming, hung upside down and dismembered while still conscious. This is animal torture and is a criminal offence under the Law. This goes way beyond kosher slaughter. Once seen, this video footage cannot ever be unseen. The company is now employing numerous security guards on the gate. The place is a hell-hole, hidden in plain sight.

As I join the other protesters, I am aware of a deathly hush hanging over the entire hillside, reminding me of the time I walked through the concentration camp at Dachau. There, Jews and political prisoners were inhumanely treated and killed. This place is exuding the same atmosphere; cold and subliminally threatening. Wouldn’t you think that a race of people who had suffered so much trauma in their past, would have more empathy for the un-necessary suffering of other sentient beings? Maybe Netanyahu has founded a new religion.

A police car is cruising by every half an hour or so, policing the peaceful, chatting to the security guards, disregarding the reports of criminal breaches of animal welfare inside.

There’s a constant stream of articulated lorries looking like they are trying to purposely knock protesters down. One nearly got me as I stumbled trying to get off the public road and scramble up onto the uneven, narrow grass verge bordered by barbed wire. A fellow protester grabbed me, pulling me up and holding me tight until the lorry had passed, its huge cab turning only an inch away from my face. It was terrifying.

The guy who brought the unbelievable animal cruelty to light, Joey Carbstrong, had been arrested the night before and all his computer, mobile etc . . . seized. Who the hell is the criminal here ????. People have written to their MPs and all got the same standard letter in response, no matter where in the country they live. Basically saying, UK slaughter regulations do not apply to religious slaughter. For kosher - animals are not required to be stunned at all. For halal – they are required to be partially stunned. The replies state that there are no plans to change these religious exemptions in the future. I wonder how many people are aware that full stunning ramps up production costs and so most of the meat now being supplied to schools, hospitals and supermarkets, is unmarked halal slaughtered meat. This needs to be properly labelled so consumers can choose whether to eat animals that have died screaming in terror and pain. 

Now I know, even animals killed in a properly UK regulated abattoir, suffer, especially when the people doing the killing (men usually) are attracted to the job because of their own psychopathic, violent tendencies. But the suffering is nowhere near as prolonged nor as intense as religiously slaughtered animals. 

We will never stop humans eating meat, there will always be abattoirs, but we need to stop the barbaric practices and have proper, enforced regulation. Currently, there is virtually no monitoring being done and companies like P. Mullaney & Sons, who by the way turned over £75million pounds last year, can cut corners and do exactly as they please.

By the time I got back home, I was totally traumatised and feeling terribly helpless.

It is now the following day and I seem to be in a weird sort of nether world. Outside my window, the world is unusually quiet underneath a bruised, grey sky. It’s as if time has stopped so that I can reassemble all the pieces of me that were broken and scattered yesterday. I feel hopeless and depressed. Respect for humans and animals is mostly gone and we are governed by a threatening bureaucracy that cares only for money. Corruption, complacency and incompetence hold sway at every level of our society. The more money you have, the more power you have and the more protection you get. Perhaps it’s always been like that, it’s just more visible now.

I would add that my conscience has kicked me in my hypocritical head and I stopped eating meat the moment I saw the river of blood and gore. I have always loved farm animals – I greet cows by mutual blowing up noses, and I sing to sheep while apologising for eating them! Not anymore. I have no intention of ever eating meat again. So, I urge everyone to look at Joey Carbstrong’s video – just search for his name on YouTube or Facebook. Hopefully, if enough people give up buying meat, these poor, cursed creatures will not be born in the first place.

Note: so they can retain their star rating, the company has blocked anyone posting negative reviews on Google. I did try giving one star but was blocked. I have also written to my MP, Debbie Abrahams. You never know, something may come of it!