The Government has confirmed a pig farm in Northumberland was the probable source of last year's foot-and-mouth outbreak.

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) released its report into the outbreak on Thursday.

The report said the source was probably contaminated meat or meat products, but admits it does not know how the infection got to the farm in the first place.

Bobby Waugh, who ran the pig fattening unit in Heddon-on-the-Wall, Northumberland, is due to be sentenced later this month for failing to tell officials his herd had the virus.

Old infection

The report said the foot and mouth epidemic - which cost the UK more than �4bn - started at Burnside Farm in February 2001 and spread throughout the UK.

Although the virus was first confirmed in pigs at an abattoir in Essex on 20 February, the origin is considered to have been the pig finishing unit.

The disease was confirmed on the farm on 23 February and investigations revealed that some pigs already had 12-day-old infections.

Mr Waugh denied 22 charges

The report reveals how the virus spread from Northumberland through the movement of diseased pigs to holdings in Essex and Kent.

A secondary route was the airborne spread of the disease to sheep on a neighbouring holding.

These animals were then sold at markets in northern England.

Other sheep, people and vehicles became infected, spreading the disease throughout England, Wales, and southern Scotland.

Waugh - whose animals were said to have sparked the outbreak - faced 15 charges last month.

He was found guilty on several counts of failing to notify authorities of the outbreak at the pig finishing farm, which supplied livestock to an abattoir in Essex.

Waugh, 56, of St Luke's Road, Pallion, Sunderland, was also found guilty of feeding unprocessed waste to his animals.

He faces up to six months in prison when he is sentenced.

To tackle the disease, authorities dug mass graves and slaughtered and burned millions of infected cattle, pigs and sheep in huge funeral pyres.