Badger Trust Cymru has demanded that the Welsh Assembly suspend TB meetings, after a Pembrokeshire farmer claimed badgers are being illegally shot every week.

Carwyn James, who farms in Cilgerran, told S4C’s Taro Naw programme that ‘more and more badgers are being killed illegally’ as farmers lose patience waiting to hear where and when a trial cull of badgers will take place.

Rural affairs minister Elin Jones has set up two groups to discuss the cull, but has refused to say who sits on the groups or publish details of their discussions, in case it triggers public demonstrations against culling, leading to illegal damage to property.

But Steve Clark, of Badger Trust Cymru, has hit out at the ‘secrecy’.

He said: “She refuses to be accountable to law-abiding nature conservation groups but holds secret wildlife extermination meetings with an industry that cannot be trusted to uphold the law.

“We hold Elin Jones entirely responsible for the unnecessary and appalling persecution of Wales’ badgers.”

Mr Clark called on Elin Jones to immediately suspend all discussions about killing badgers, calling it ‘an unscientific backward step into the Dark Ages’.

He added: “The Welsh Assembly must grasp the best available scientific advice and clearly acknowledge that cattle, not badgers, are the reservoir of this insidious disease.”