Footage that appears to show sheep being kicked, beaten and abused during wool-shearing on English and Scottish farms has been released by animal rights activists.

Peta Asia carried out an undercover investigation over the summer in the British sheep shearing industry. The 18 minutes of footage released yesterday is part of a wider investigation, in which Peta documented alleged abuse on 25 farms in Buckinghamshire, Hertfordshire, Suffolk, Essex, and Northumberland counties. In Scotland they have collected evidence from 24 farms in West Lothian, Fife, the Borders, Dumfries and Galloway, East Lothian, Midlothian and South Lanarkshire.

The new footage appears to show workers swearing at the animals while kicking them in the face and beating their heads against the ground. In one scene, a worker repeatedly slams a sheep’s head against the floor while shouting abuse. In some of the footage, the shearers, none of whom are identified, beat the animals with metal shearing clippers and throw them down from their shearing platforms on to the ground. In other sections, when the sheep try to move during the shearing process, workers appear to push their boots heavily down on the animals’ heads and necks, kicking and slapping them in the face.

The footage also appears to show some serious injuries, with fast and rough shearing leaving open wounds on the animals.

Peta has sent the footage to Suffolk Trading Standards and the Scottish SPCA along with documented allegations against specific workers, outlining alleged abuse of animals.

The group has also asked Lord Gardiner of Kimble and the Scottish minister for rural affairs, Mairi Gougeon, to introduce compulsory CCTV cameras into sheep sheds.

“This new footage makes it clear that the cruelty we’ve captured on video is far from an anomaly, as the industry would like everyone to believe, and shows how shearing operations treat animals – something every shopper has a right to know,” says Peta Asia’s senior vice president, Jason Baker.

Nirali Shah of Peta Asia told the Guardian: “We have found the abuse to be similar on all farms we’ve visited worldwide. We’ve seen time and time again that whenever animals are exploited for profit, corners are always cut.”

She said new footage had been released in order to encourage consumers to stop buying wool. “We released several more minutes of footage [because] with the Christmas shopping season upon us, we want to show consumers just a glimpse into the extent of these abuses. This isn’t just a few incidents, but the cruelty that sheep face every single day in the wool industry.”

Shah said the only solution is the installation of CCTV cameras as standard practice. “The British public have always insisted on transparency when it comes to the way animals are treated, which is why the presence of CCTV cameras must be made mandatory for all UK shearing operations, like it now is in England’s abattoirs.”

The Scottish SPCA told the Guardian that they had received the footage in October and an investigation is under way that will include visits to farms.

A joint statement from British Wool, Farmers Union of Wales (FUW), National Association of Agricultural Contractors (NAAC), National Farmers Union (NFU), NFU Cymru and National Sheep Association (NSA) said: “Farmers and contractors within the sheep industry take animal welfare very seriously and any behaviour that is found to fall below that standard is not tolerated. Shearing is an absolutely necessary activity to ensure that wool can be removed safely to protect sheep from heat stress and disease. Shearing is a highly skilled job and every year more than a thousand people in all parts of the UK attend a two day shearing training course that is tailored to their existing level of experience and skill.”