Following on from yesterday’s blog about the conviction of “vicious” gamekeeper Robert William Hebblewhite (see here), more information has emerged about what happened in court.
We mentioned yesterday how unusual it was for a gamekeeper to be convicted of actually killing the dead raptor(s) found on their land; typically, in case after case, the gamekeeper is convicted for the lesser offence of “possession” (e.g. of poison) and the charge for the actual killing is dropped. This has caused an immense amount of frustration, not only for those investigators who often spend months working on getting a case to court, but also for us, the members of the public, who feel a massive sense of injustice every time it happens.
Well, not so in this case. If you read the article published here, you’ll notice that the judge (in this case District Judge John Stobard) was having none of it.
The prosecutor (Mark Holmes) contended that Hebblewhite’s motive was clear. He was the gamekeeper on this shoot, with responsibilities for pest control. The shoot had been losing birds because buzzards were in the area (his words, not ours!). Pheasant carcasses laced with Carbofuran had been found next to the Carbofuran-poisoned buzzards. A jar of Carbofuran was found in Hebblewhite’s van (see photo). Hebbelewhite’s van had been seen going to the scene on several occasions.
Hebblewhite had pleaded guilty to possession of Carbofuran (the lesser offence) but not for poisoning the buzzards.
The defence argued that the poisoner could have been anyone.
District Judge John Stobard wasn’t fooled. He is reported to have said this:
“The birds died from Carbofuran and here in a van is the very stuff that killed them. The defence says it could have been anyone. Well, could it? I’m not here to discuss the case as a philosophical argument. What is the reality of the matter?
This defendant is here to secure the presence of the shoots that take place by the way of being a gamekeeper. He must look after the pheasants and protect them from other animals.
I think he has done so in an old fashioned and particularly nasty way by lacing the pheasant with Carbofuran in the full knowledge the buzzards would be killed.
It can only point to one conclusion – he did it“.
So finally, here’s a judge who put two and two together and didn’t make five. It’s quite telling though, that this is such an unusual result that we need to highlight it here. What does that say about how our justice system deals with raptor persecution crimes? What does it tell us about our low expectations for these court cases?
In Scotland we’re so used to seeing ridiculous legal obstacles placed in the way of justice that we now expect the poisoner/trapper/killer to get off. “Did you see the defendant place the poison? Did you see the eagle/buzzard/goshawk/red kite actually eat from that very poisoned bait? Was it filmed? Did you have permission to film on that land? Can you forensically match the poison on the bait/inside the dead raptor with the big stash of illegal poison found in the defendant’s house /shed /garage /vehicle /porch /gamebag /jacket pocket? No? Well then he can’t be convicted”.
Well done again to the RSPB Investigations Team, to the CPS, and particularly to District Judge John Stobard for seeing the bleedin’ obvious and acting upon it.
UPDATE: There’s an excellent news piece on this conviction from BBC Look North. Decent coverage and explains that raptor poisoning is a national issue. Great stuff. Available on BBC iPlayer here for limited period (starts at 11.58 – ends at 14.40).
Raptor Persecution UK 
One assumes that this particular Judge is not into shooting and therefore had no vested interests. Perhaps Judges like Councillors etc have to announce an “interest” if they are presiding over or voting on a particular issue. I do not know do Judges have to declare interest at all in cases they are presiding over?
Our justice system [Scottish and English] doesn’t operate on the basis of “the bleedin’ obvious” – it operates on evidence…..and I talk as one who has been directly involved and deeply frustrated by many of the cases you describe…but I dont want to see the entire justice system overturned because wildlife cases dont all have enough evidence.
Having said that, what makes me angry is the continual ignoring of the high rate of offending taking place in the so-called “profession” of gamekeeping which sheriffs and judges ignore in their weighing up of evidence. Those hard earned statistics [brave local informants, tireless raptor workers, hard working policemen etc..] must surely help balance the scales of justice.
..and we still have expensive QCs with their teams of helpers up against overworked Procurator Fiscals who are no longer encouraged to use experts such as RSPB/SSPCA/Raptor workers, which at one time went a long way to trying to make a court hearing “a level playing field”.
I expect we will have a hard fought appeal over this judges use of “the bleedin’ obvious”..?
And the evidene in this case was overwhelming by any standards – and the judge made the obvious conclusion. To expand this out there has been plenty of murder convictions even where an actual body has not been found
Two weeks ago Alistair Balmain used his editorial notes to condemn the shooting of the Hen Harrier “Bowland Betty” on the Yorkshire moors, I didn’t think this would last. this week he chose to condemn the RSPB for continuing their persecution of gamekeepers, based on the radio debate, co incidentally in the same week we see the conviction of yet another keeper for depriving us of our “wildlife of today“, Two dead Buzzards were found. Letter of the week in the same magazine and presumably chosen by its editor was the same old garbage of there being too many Sparrowhawks and Magpies, Ironically these two species occur at lower densities near breeding Buzzards due to predation of both adults and their young. For something positive to come from this it would be nice to see this estate shunned by the shooting fraternity, basc threatened to expel anyone caught up in these kind of incidents, that is no where near enough to put an end to this behaviour, it needs to put pressure on members of that shoot, others must have known this was going on. Both shooting times and basc need to start sticking up for the shoots that don’t break the law and protect their names by taking their heads out of the sand ,stop playing the victim card and help weed these criminals out.