A GROUP of animal rights campaigners staged a demonstration outside a restaurant in Canterbury over its sale of foie gras (Gerry Warren writes).

The protestors say cruel processes, including force-feeding, are used to fatten geese and it should be taken off the menu.

The protest, led by the Herne Bay and Whitstable Animal Rights Group, appealed to the owner of Element 5 Restaurant and Bar in Pound Street.

Spokesman Gera Collins said: "We are asking the owner to act in a humanitarian and principled way by discontinuing the sale of foie gras. He and his customers should no longer support the cruelty that goes with its production.

"It is a cruel trade that inflicts unnecessary suffering and misery on the geese."

But restaurant owner Jean Pierre Machet said the "delicacy" was now off the menu until the winter because it was out of season.

He added: "I do not like the way the protestors spoke to me and took pictures of me without my permission.

"The foie gras I sell is not produced in the industrial and battery farming way which they refer to. That product is awful and I do not support the method of its production.

"I buy mine from a small farm where the geese are free range. It is a very different process.

"When the season starts again I will decide what my customers want. If there is not much demand, then I will not have it on the menu. But if there is, I will consider it."