Slaughtering of tasty animals has once again reached the rarified confines of the judicial food chain.

The Game Meats Company of Australia has an halal abattoir at Eurobin, Victoria, where goats are turned into food for export.

The animal rights activists at Farm Transparency International hooked up some cameras inside the slaughterhouse to record what went on.

From the footage FTI created a 14 minute video which it sent to the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry (Cth), Channel Seven, and uploaded the footage to its website.

Seven broadcast a story about the company’s goat processing activities, but after a legal threat from the goat processor did not run the footage provided by FTI. The Department seems to be sitting on its hands.

The video footage is forever banned from public consumption courtesy of the Full Feds, led by Justice Ian (Jackboots) Jackman, with Stephen Burley and Christopher Horan bringing up the rear.

The reasons were devoid of any mention of the welfare or alleged mistreatment of animals. The court had more concern about the trespass  and copyright than it did about the welfare of goats.

In the process, Jackman stomped his boots over the primary judge John Snaden.

Surely, greater delicacy might be applied to Snaden who, even though a relatively junior barrister, was appointed to the court by his Perth friend and tribunal stacker the Very Rev Christian (Pantsman) Porter.

Speeches by Pantsman and Snaden at the weekend Samuel Griffith Jamboree in Perth are eagerly awaited.

HH Justice Jackman delved into the intestines of the High Court’s thinking in the Lenah Game Meats case where Gummow and Hayne dangled the idea of a constructive trust to be applied to the copyright of footage obtained by trespassing animal activists, which the ABC wanted to broadcast.

The case was not decided on that basis and in the event the interlocutory injunction against the ABC was dismissed.

For his part, Smiler in the Lenah case opened the door to actions in privacy, which is where we’ve ended up today with the statutory tort for serious invasions thereof.

Snaden awarded GMC general damages of $30,000 and exemplary damages of $100,000, but didn’t order an injunction or find that the company was entitled to a constructive trust over the copyright in the footage created by FTI.

Jackboots, adopting his Alpha judge tone, took Snaden to task, asking “Why then did the primary judge not find in favour of GMC?”

Porter’s friend was ticked off in numerous ways, including the reference to “information” that should “more properly have been a reference to property or copyright”.

Snaden applied a precedent that is “readily distinguishable” from this case and gave a reason in the perceived absence of a precedent.

The primary judge also raised “false issues” and was too timid not to embrace the constructive trust.

“It is difficult to think of a clearer case than this …” for the application of a constructive trust –  especially given FTI’s forensic decision not to invite the primary judge to make any findings whether the video revealed criminal offences.

The court went full throttle: an injunction; assignment of the copyright of the footage to the meat producer; deletion of the images; plus suppression and no publication orders for the images captured by Farm Transparency.

To top it off the cross appeal on the quantum of the exemplary damages was dismissed while Snaden’s deferral of orders for interest and costs was “undesirable”, according to Jackman.

It’s unclear whether the Full Feds saw the 14 minute video – certainly there was no discussion of the details of its content. To what extent were the goats subject to cruel treatment and if so shouldn’t consumers, here and abroad, know about it?

There was no evidence from vets about the slaughtering process.

Farm Transparency was of the view that the abattoir breached animal welfare codes relating to the hygienic production and transportation of meat for human consumption. A FTI spokesman added that “The footage is extremely hard to watch”.

In its report Channel Seven said the video showed goats having their throats cut while they appeared to be still alive and new-born kids left alone in a room for hours while they cried in pain.

It’s always good to know about what goes on in the food chain before you put something in your mouth.

Chris Delforce, the executive director of Farm Transparency, told Justinian that the animals should be stunned and unconscious before their throats are cut.

He says the footage shows that in many instances young goats are not stunned properly and are left paralysed but still conscious. The animals sent to the abattoir are largely roaming free on the range, including numbers of pregnant females.

Previous exposes by FTI include animals being beaten in Tasmania without first being stunned; the beheading of a live sheet in a Queensland slaughterhouse; and pigs in South Australia having to live alongside their decomposing relatives.

The Game Meats case breaks new territory – being the first time the courts have found that copyright can be acquired by the trespassee.

How far does this enthusiasm for constructive trusts extend in the protection of corporate interests?

Might it apply, for instance, to someone who without authority filmed routine mistreatment of children at a child care centre and then sent it to the media for broadcast. Similarly with images captured in an aged care home showing elder abuse.

Would a constructive trust over the copyright in the film give way to the public interest in knowing about the brutalisation of children and the elderly?

In the meantime, the implications of all this are only dawning for the media, which will find it increasingly difficult to publish public interest stories based on clandestinely obtained footage.

FTI is considering a special leave application to Their Highnesses.

The Game Meats Company of Australia Pty Ltd v Farm Transparency International Ltd