The video contains highly distressing footage of sheep being kicked, stamped on and thrown into pens for slaughtering.

It also shows botched attempts at cutting the animals’ throats, with one particular piece of footage showing a worker making five attempts to sever a sheep’s blood vessels.

According to the Guardian report, four slaughtermen at Bowood Lamb have had their operating licenses suspended and the company said one worker had been sacked.

The Food Standards Agency in Britain has launched an investigation into the footage and said “there is no excuse for treating animals in the way shown on the video.”

EU law requires abattoirs to stun animals before slaughter to prevent unnecessary suffering but halal producers are exempt from this. The same exemptions apply in Ireland.