A police wildlife officer told yesterday how he found dead and suffering pigs at a farm near Bromham.

PC Anthony Miles, describing the scene that greeted him, said he saw a pig carcass by some pipes and about six more carcasses inside a van.

A trailer contained two dead animals, one of which had its front legs roped to the front of the trailer wall.

PC Miles was giving evidence at Salisbury Magistrates Court, where farmer Lance Beale is accused of animal welfare offences and breaching a ban on keeping livestock.

Mr Beale, 59, denies nine charges brought after police called animal health officers to Wyatts Lake Farm, Westbrook, on January 23 last year.

PC Miles said there was a pig pen containing two carcasses and live pigs around the bodies. The animals were lethargic, he said.

He spoke to three farm workers, Adrian and Carl Holt and Brett North, and said the two Holts told him there was no animal feed. They were directed to get some.

Police were joined at the farm by animal health inspectors and RSPCA officials. Mr Beale arrived later.

One charge against him alleges he failed to feed a pig properly causing it to die of starvation. Another alleges the farmer did not dispose of eight carcasses as required by the law.

Hannah Sargeant, animal health and welfare inspector at Wiltshire Council, told the court that she made six unannounced visits to the farm in 2008.

She said Mr Beale told her that as he was banned from keeping livestock he was a consultant to WLF (1981) Ltd, the company he said owned the livestock.

A search of the company by Mrs Sargeant showed that Mr Beale was its secretary and his sister, Elizabeth Jane Grant, a director. On one visit she asked Mr Beale if his sister needed to be consulted about an issue but he said not.

Asked by prosecution barrister Malcolm Gibney who she thought had responsibility for the pigs, Mrs Sargeant said: “Mr Beale seemed to be the person in control of the operation to me.”

She said she understood he lived at the farm. She said there were Polish workers, but she didn’t speak to them because their English was ‘extremely broken’.

Questioned by defence barrister Mike Fullerton, Mrs Sargeant agreed Mr Beale told her one Polish worker, Stack, had two years’ experience looking after pigs and another, Merrick, had been a pig man in Poland for 30 years.

Mr Fullerton said Mr Beale acted as a consultant without having custody of the livestock and said Mrs Sargeant did not question other people working at the farm about their roles.

The trial continues.