The chief reporter at the Ilkley Gazette was forced to strip to be disinfected after he took photos at a foot and mouth disease cull.

Paul Langan had to take his clothes off so that they, and he, could be disinfected.

The incident happened near Bolton Abbey, but the Gazette agreed not to publish the pictures or reveal the whereabouts of the farm because of the farmer’s anguish at the cull.

Paul stopped at a Department of the Environment Food and Rural Affairs roadblock to ask officials if he could walk to see some dead animals waiting to be loaded onto a lorry.

He said: “I was given permission to use the road on foot as far as the driveway.

“Walking down the road I was ignored by DEFRA officials working in the field opposite, but when I stopped on the private driveway and turned round to take photographs of what was happening, they started to pay attention to me.

“One man, who identified himself as a DEFRA official, but would not give me his name, ordered me to stop taking photographs but I refused saying that I had permission to do what I was doing.”

When he left to go back to his car, he was asked by the DEFRA official not to leave the area.

He said: “The official said he had called the police and asked if I would wait for them. He asked me not to go past the parked vehicle. This was the first indication I was given that anyone considered I was in a restricted area.

“When the police arrived the official told them I had to be disinfected before I could leave. I had to strip all my clothes off, which were sprayed and then I was sprayed myself as I stood naked in the lane.

“I was given a white suit to wear and my clothes were put in a green plastic bag and tied up before I was allowed to leave.

“There were plenty of officials around at the road block sitting in cars, if I was entering a restricted area they could have informed me.

“At no time did I go near the field where the dead animals were and at no time did I approach the wagons where the slaughtered cattle were being loaded.”

According to a spokesman from DEFRA, Paul was warned not to enter an area of loading described as a ‘biosecurity’ area.

But while conceding that being made to strip naked in the middle of a country lane was a ‘bit humiliating’, he had no qualms about taking full measures to stop foot and mouth disease.

He added: “When I left the road and went up the drive of the property I deliberately walked through the disinfected straw so there would be no chance of any contamination.

“It was only when I got my camera out of my pocket and refused to stop taking photographs that the incident turned rather nasty.”

He has now complained to the Department of Food and Rural Affairs.

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