DEAD sheep were found hanging from trees in the back garden of a Lymm house after being slaughtered for their meat.

Police and environmental health officers raided Matuuk Abdul Rahhamn Ayyad’s home on Knutsford Road, close to the motorway roundabout, in October 2007, where they found the dead sheep, a wheelbarrow full of sheep entrails, a metal bucket full of blood and 28 sheep skins.

They also found a makeshift arrangement for hanging dead animals from while they were skinned and a cradle for restraining them while they were killed.

At Warrington Magistrates’ Court last Wednesday Ayyad, aged 58, was found guilty in his absence of causing unnecessary suffering to animals, breaching food by-products regulations and breaching the Animal Health Act 1981.

He admitted killing the animals for halal meat for his family when interviewed by police, the court heard, and said he had been doing it for six or seven years.

He said that he was not aware he was committing an offence by killing the animals himself.

Some of the meat was to be minced and some frozen and stored for the Ayyad family’s Eid celebrations.

“We take these matters very seriously both in terms of the hygiene associated with the slaughter of animals for human consumption and also in terms of animal welfare,” said Pete Astley, Warrington trading standards and commercial environmental health manager.

His wife ran a restaurant in St Helens, the court heard, but there was never any evidence that the meat had been sold there.

Ayyad had been banned from keeping animals for life in 1995 at Macclesfield Magistrates’ Court after being convicted of cruelty, but that ban was later reduced to five years.

On Wednesday Warrington magistrates reinstated that ban for life.

Ayyad left the country in July 2008 for Saudi Arabia to visit his sick mother.

He has not returned and in January the courts received a letter from his doctor recommending that Ayyad did not travel.

Magistrates decided to hear the case in his absence and found him guilty.

They fined him £5,000 and ordered him to pay £4,000 costs, though it is understood the money is unlikely to be recovered because Ayyad is in Saudi Arabia.

“It’s very difficult to be pleased with the result because one always has at the back of your mind the crime,” said Mr Astley.

“It was an extensive investigation and my officers worked with police and animal welfare to ensure we brought Mr Ayyad to task.”