HOW would you like it if your pets were killed before your eyes? It doesn't take a genius to realise that such a ghastly scenario would be distressing in the extreme.

All this would be bad enough - but if you were then told that your animals might be destined for human consumption, then the heartache can barely be imagined.

Yet this is what actually happened at a Worcestershire farm yesterday after a small herd of cattle were slaughtered by government officials. Their owners had lost a fight for re-examination after the animals tested positive for bovine tuberculosis.

The unusual feature of this case centred on the fact that a number of the cattle were pets and, in theory, not intended for the food chain. Yet there is every possibility that this

will happen.

This newspaper accepts that tough decisions have to be made in order to fight the spread of bovine TB. Nevertheless, if an animal is deemed a pet, and arguably would never leave the farm in which it lived, then surely there could have been some leeway here?

We understand that the animals may enter the food chain in order to minimise the cost to the taxpayer. But how many people would rather these animals were spared this final ignominy in the interests of compassion? Many, we suspect.

The scenes at Lower Snead Farm were obviously upsetting. But the failure to reach a compromise gives an added tragic dimension to what was undoubtedly a supremely distasteful episode.