On 21st November 2001, at Perth Sheriff Court, a gamekeeper was convicted of placing a bait containing carbofuran at Tillyrie Farm, Milnathort, Perthshire, poisoning five buzzards and a carrion crow and possessing the banned substance carbofuran for the purpose of committing offences against the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981. He was also convicted of illegal carbofuran storage under the Control of Pesticides Regulations 1986.
He was fined a total of £2,400.
At the time of the offence, the keeper leased the shooting rights at Tillyrie Farm and ran it as a pheasant shoot. Tillyrie Farm is owned by racehorse trainer Dorothy Thompson, who praised her gamekeeper by saying, “He makes a very good job of rearing the birds [pheasants] and wildlife on the estate has increased for the better”.
The keeper subsequently appealed his conviction at the High Court of Judiciary Appeal, Edinburgh, in September 2003. The appeal was unsuccessful and the keeper was ordered to pay the original £2,400 imposed by the Court.
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