Bird flu firm gets compensation

Bernard Matthews will get £589,000 compensation for the birds compulsorily killed to prevent the spread of bird flu, Defra has said.

Cases of the highly virulent H5N1 strain of the disease were discovered on a farm owned by Bernard Matthews in Suffolk in February.

More than 160,000 of the company's birds were slaughtered.

The payout for healthy birds killed was announced in Defra's final epidemiology report into the avian flu outbreak.