THE government allowed Bernard Matthews to continue importing turkey meat from a bird flu-hit region of Hungary even though it suspected the area was the source of the British outbreak.

A consignment of 20 tons of turkey was imported last Tuesday from a slaughterhouse in Hungary, three days after avian flu was confirmed at the Bernard Matthews plant in Suffolk.

Government inspectors knew in advance that Bernard Matthews intended to import the meat from a slaughterhouse only 30 miles away from the Hungarian outbreak – but did nothing to stop it.

A spokesman for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) yesterday admitted that it had the power to block such meat imports but had decided not to do so.

Ben Bradshaw, the agriculture minister, blamed the failure to act on fears of retaliatory action against British exports by other European Union states. “There was a fear that if we were to ban imports from Hungary, other countries could treat British exports in the same way,” he said.

It meant that meat potentially carrying the flu virus was carried straight through protective cordons set up around the Suffolk plant to prevent the spread of avian flu.

The Hungarian meat was then processed at the plant in Holton, where a near-identical strain of the H5N1 bird flu virus had led to the cull of nearly 160,000 turkeys.

Investigators from the Food Standards Agency were this weekend checking to see if any of the processed imported meat had been distributed to shops. The investigation could lead toa mass recall of Bernard Matthews products.

The revelation will intensify criticism of the way the government and Bernard Matthews have handled the outbreak. Peter Ainsworth, the shadow environment secretary, accused the government of “extraordinary complacency”.

“It beggars belief that the government could have been so casual about the virus being brought in on imported meat,” he said. “Anyone with common sense could see it was highly unlikely that wild birds were the cause because there was no concrete evidence.”

Government vets first learnt last Saturday that the flu virus in Suffolk was “similar” to that found in Hungary. They also discovered Bernard Matthews had received a consignment of turkey meat from the Hungarian abattoir near the suspect area a few days before the Suffolk outbreak began.

On Tuesday the vets were notified by Bernard Matthews about a new consignment of 40 tons of poultry from Hungary. Half was from the company’s headquarters in the northwest, but the other half was from the slaughterhouse in the bird flu-hit southeast of the country.

Despite the fact that the slaughterhouse in Kecskemet was just 30 miles from the restricted zone, and despite the suspicions over its link to the British outbreak, vets decided not to block the imports.

Two lorries took the poultry to the Holton processing plant, which is just a few hundred yards from the turkey rearing sheds where bird flu was found. Over the next three days the meat was processed, although Bernard Matthews could not confirm if it had entered the food chain.After days of claiming publicly that the most likely source of the British outbreak was wild birds, Defra apparently shifted the focus of its investigation on Thursday evening. It announced genetic tests had confirmed that the Suffolk and Hungarian viruses were virtually identical.

Bernard Matthews has been importing meat to make up for a post Christmas shortfall. It said it “volunteered” to stop its Hungarian imports on Thursday night.

However, according to a source close to Defra, the company had to be threatened with the forced closure of all its poultry outlets in Britain before it would stop imports.

A spokesman for Bernard Matthews denied the claim.

The government is also considering legal action against the firm over potential breaches of bio-security at Holton. Investigators are examining whether processed poultry meat was left outside the plant. If the meat was infected, the virus could have been picked up by wild birds and rats and carried into the rearing sheds and the wider countryside.

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