A FURIOUS pig farmer has blasted the wife of Sir Paul McCartney after she filmed covert protest footage at the dead of the night in his buildings.

On Thursday (March 15) it was revealed Heather Mills and a camera crew had snuck into Briarwood Farm at Greinton, near Bridgwater, to make a video highlighting the use of farrowing crates.

She had teamed up with animal welfare group Viva! and the undercover movie shot on March 4 shows her next to a sow and slating the conditions there.

But farmer Michael Underhill told the Mercury the protest invasion had made his children worried about their safety and tempted him to take civil action against her over trespassing.

"What right does she think she has to nose around our property - she has upset my kids," the 38-year-old said.

"They don't understand it, they feel less safe because someone has invaded your privacy at night time.

"If they had rung me up I would have let them look around."

The married dad-of-two said the reason farrowing crates were used was to stop the sow from killing any of the litter by lying over them.

He said he had received strong support from the farming community and said British standards for pigs were the highest in the world.

"I am angry at what happened, I couldn't care less about Heather Mills - she just wants publicity," he said.

"At the end of the day we have done nothing wrong, we are totally legal and we are totally above board.

"I would love to take legal action, but it would cost a fortune and farming is not lucrative - I'm not going to be able to afford to do it."

Mr Underhill was not being accused of any unlawful activity, with Viva! and Heather Mills only claiming that the use of farrowing crates in general should not be acceptable "Farrowing crates should be banned immediately - they are a barbaric throwback to a different age and are nothing more than a legalised form of animal abuse," Ms Mills said.

"Of course sows suffer terrible stress in these cages as they try desperately to fulfil their natural nurturing role and the outcome can be mental collapse.

"To claim that Britain has the highest standards of animal welfare in the world, which the industry does, is nothing more than a joke."

Viva campaigns manager Justin Kerswell stressed that no disease was brought by the team onto the Somerset farm.

"We observe strict bio security measures. The only thing that we took was footage," he said.

"We didn't pick his farm because it was the worst - we just wanted to show a typical farm.

"We only ever enter through unlocked doors."