Month: November 2014

Environment Minister gives evidence on wildlife crime to RACCE Committee

Wheelhouse RACCEA couple of weeks ago, Police Scotland and COPFS gave evidence to the Scottish Parliament’s Rural Affairs, Climate Change and Environment (RACCE) Committee about wildlife crime (see here).

Last week it was the turn of Environment Minister Paul Wheelhouse. The archived video can be watched here and the full transcript can be read here.

So what did we learn? Quite a lot.

1. The Minister is “confident” that surveillance cameras can be used in wildlife crime investigations and the Lord Advocate has made it clear that the option is available to Police Scotland. (Interestingly, Police Scotland were not quite so keen when they were asked about it two weeks ago).

2. The Minister will shortly be announcing a forthcoming pesticide disposal scheme (he made it clear it was not an amnesty) – no further details available.

3. The committee reviewing wildlife crime penalties (led by Prof Poustie) will report back early in the New Year, and not in December as originally planned.

4. The Minister recognises the “wall of silence” that so often prevents the reporting of wildlife crime. Good.

5. Two weeks ago, Police Scotland claimed that the number of reported wildlife crimes was more than just the tip of the iceberg. The Minister disagrees with that and cited the large areas of suitable and yet unoccupied raptor habitat as evidence of widespread unreported wildlife crime. However, he suggested that more research was necessary to understand why raptors may be missing from those areas. Eh? What about the twenty years of high quality research that has shown time and time again the link between driven grouse moor management and raptor persecution?

6. The Minister recognises that the (police) response to every wildlife crime incident isn’t perfect. However, he believes that everyone in the law enforcement community takes wildlife crime seriously. He said that with a straight face.

7. On the new General Licence restrictions, the Minister explained that he was taking a ‘targeted approach’ to try and avoid penalising those who are not involved in wildlife crime. He accepts that the restriction measure could easily be by-passed by someone simply applying for an individual licence, although he maintains that SNH may not issue one – each case will be judged on its merit. He has more faith in SNH than we do but time will tell.

He also said that he expects GL restriction cases to be listed publicly on SNH’s website “on a live basis” because he wants the restriction to be used as a ‘reputational driver’. Good.

He made an interesting statement about who is probably responsible for poisoning birds:

“In most cases in which we find a dead poisoned bird on a landholding, we can be reasonably confident that the poisoning took place on that landholding and that the bird died on the landholding as a result of that poisoning“.

That’s very encouraging to hear.

8. On the idiotic Police Scotland press release about the Ross-shire Massacre, the Minister said “unfortunately” he didn’t have any input into the wording of the statement and he urged the Committee not to read too much into the statement, but instead to focus on the fact that 16 of the 22 dead birds are confirmed to have been poisoned and that a criminal investigation was continuing. You can read between the lines – he didn’t think much of the police statement.

9. On the SSPCA consultation, the Minister said he hadn’t yet made up his mind about whether to increase their investigatory powers and he was waiting for an analysis of the consultation responses before he decided. He expected to receive the analysis “early next year at the latest“.

10. When asked whether he was considering further measures to tackle wildlife crime, the Minister said he didn’t have a definitive timescale but wanted to give the current measures time to take effect. However, he did say that he had already commissioned a review of game-shoot licensing in other countries, in preparation for consideration of further measures. He wants to know what options are available to him should he decide to take a harder line. The review will be undertaken by Prof Poustie as soon as the wildlife crime penalties review has been completed in the New Year. Excellent.

11. The Minister said he would try to incorporate further data in the next wildlife crime annual report, including reports of illegal traps (but with no apparent victim) and poisoned baits (with no apparent victim). Good.

12. Two weeks ago, COPFS claimed that vicarious liability was already proving to be an effective deterrent against raptor crime (based on what the landowners had been saying). The Minister disagreed, citing on-going wildlife crime as a clear indication that not everyone is deterred by the threat of vicarious liability. He thinks that may change if/when there is a successful VL conviction. Good.

All in all, we think the Minister did pretty well. He may be a bit too light-handed and cautious for many of us, but it’s clear that he has taken a personal interest in addressing wildlife crime, he’s incredibly well-informed, he’s not fooled by the cries of denial from the wildlife killers, and his measures are heading in the right direction, albeit slowly. He thinks the GL restrictions will be the most important step in the process but we disagree. His defining moment will come when he makes the decision on whether to increase the SSPCA’s powers. That decision, and that decision alone, will tell us all we need to know about how seriously committed this Government is to tackling wildlife crime.

Details, details

The following letter appeared in the Press & Journal today:

Wind turbines affecting wildlife – Sir – I congratulate Lyndsey Ward for her excellent letter on windfarms and wildlife. There is absolutely no doubt that the raptors found dead or seriously injured at wind turbines are only the tip of the iceberg. For political reasons, the true figures will never be released. While I fully support Lyndsey’s call for an independent study into the decline of all vulnerable species in areas where there are windfarm developments, I would suggest the study should go further to include the impact protected predators have on species that are in serious decline. The RSPB and Scottish Government would do well to remember and pay heed to the wise words of King George VI: “the wildlife of today is not ours to dispose of as we please. We have it in trust. We must account for it to those who come after”. Peter Fraser, Catanellan, Crathie.

Fascinating, isn’t it, how a discussion about the potential impact of wind farms on raptors is suddenly turned into a dig at the RSPB and an unrelated discussion on ‘the impact protected predators have on species that are in serious decline’?

Perhaps not so surprising when you realise that the author, Peter Fraser, just happens to share the same name and address as the Vice Chair of the Scottish Gamekeepers’ Association. The same Peter Fraser who recently retired after 43 years as a gamekeeper and stalker on Invercauld Estate and whose views on who is responsible for illegal raptor persecution are not supported by actual evidence.

In light of Peter Fraser’s background, it’s interesting to re-read the letter and see how highly it scores on the brilliantly-devised Lagopus’s Delusion Index.

SGA Our team

 

Ross-shire Massacre: MSP calls for review of police investigation

As the Ross-shire Massacre fiasco rolls into its eighth month, one MSP is making a stand.

Dave Thompson MSP (SNP: Skye, Lochaber and Badenoch) has called on Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill to undertake a review in to the police handling of this investigation. Well done, that man!

The police investigation into one of the most high profile mass raptor poisoning crimes in decades has blundered along for far too long and is fully deserving of public scrutiny, as is the accompanying police media strategy. Rather than providing clear and timely information, their strategy has been to release a series of untimely, misleading and willfully ambiguous statements that have done anything but inform. Indeed, these statements have simply led to more and more outlandish speculation and a growing sense of frustration and anger. Given how keen Police Scotland are on “public accountability” (e.g. see here), they’ll no doubt welcome a review of their handling of this case.

Dave Thompson MSP is a member of the Scottish Parliament’s Rural Affairs, Climate Change and Environment (RACCE) Committee, who recently heard evidence from two senior Police Scotland representatives about the Ross-shire Massacre (see here). It seems he was as unimpressed with their answers as we were.

He said: “It would be useful if a full review of the investigation process was carried out. It would go a long way to allaying any fears the general public may have but also, in the interests of transparency, such a review would take away any lingering confusion about how these great birds of prey met their demise.

“This is why I have written to Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill to request that a review of the investigation process takes place and why I will be making sure the Lord Advocate is copied into any correspondence on the matter“.

Dave Thompson MSP formally opening the Tollie Red Kite feeding station in 2012, assisted by Alex Matheson (Brahan Estate) and George Campbell (RSPB Regional Director). [RSPB Scotland photo]

Dave Thompson MSP

 

They forgot the birds

The following images were photographed on a Scottish estate yesterday by one of our blog readers. They said:

“We found a huge dump of badly decomposing pheasants and partridge plus many recently killed birds. The hillside is thick with them and the smell is really bad. There must be several hundred dumped birds“.

 Interestingly, in a letter to the Daily Telegraph in November 2005 headed ‘Game birds for eating not dumping’, Tim Bonner of the Countryside Alliance said this:

“Every bird shot in Britain goes into the food chain, whether into participants’ freezers, or through game dealers into an increasing number of supermarkets, butchers, pubs and restaurants“.

Another embarrassing lie from the ‘custodians of the countryside’ exposed.

Cue influx of buzzards, kites and other predators coming to feast on these rotting carcasses and then subsequent complaints by the game-shooting industry that predators are at “plague proportions”.

Dumped game birds 3

 

Wildlife crime penalties: have your say

There has long been dissatisfaction with the penalties handed out to those convicted of wildlife crime. Yesterday’s sentencing of convicted mass raptor poisoner Allen Lambert of Stody Estate merely served to highlight the issue, again. But what we perceive to be unacceptably lenient penalties is certainly nothing new, and especially those sentences given to people (usually gamekeepers) associated with the game-shooting industry.

There’s a huge lack of public confidence in the way the judiciary deals with these criminals, with many people often talking about corruption, vested interests, biased judges/sheriffs etc. We’ve all come to expect unduly lenient measures – you only have to look at the comments on social media even before Lambert’s sentence was announced – people were predicting a metaphorical ‘slap on the wrist’, and in essence, that’s indeed what he got, even though the judge had stated that Lambert’s crimes “had crossed the custody threshold“.

Quite often (although apparently not in Lambert’s case), the accused’s employer (typically a wealthy landowner) will even fork out for a Queen’s Counsel (QC) to put forward the accused’s defence. A QC is considered to be an exceptional lawyer of outstanding ability – it’s hardly a level playing field to pit a QC against an ‘average’ public prosecutor, leading to even more public concern about the perceived ‘fairness’ of these trials and any subsequent punishment.

Sentencing for wildlife crimes has been hit or miss in both Scotland and England. For most wildlife crime offences (although not all), the maximum sentence available for each offence is a £5,000 fine and/or a six month custodial sentence. So for example, if someone had been convicted of poisoning two buzzards, they could potentially be hit with a £10,000 fine and a 12 month custodial sentence. As far as we’re aware, the maximum sentence has never been given. Instead, a large dollop of judicial discretion has been applied, resulting in weak and inconsistent penalties and a growing level of frustration amongst the general public who wish to see justice being done.

For example, in 2011, a gamekeeper in South Lanarkshire was convicted of poisoning four buzzards with the banned pesticide Alphachloralose. His sentence? An admonishment (basically a telling off). The maximum penalty available to the Sheriff was a £20,000 fine and/or a two-year custodial sentence. What was even more astonishing about this case was that the gamekeeper had been convicted of another wildlife crime three years earlier (illegal use of a crow cage trap in which he’d caught a buzzard), on the same land, for which he’d received a £300 fine. So the poisoning of four buzzards with a banned pesticide was his second conviction and yet he was given the most lenient penalty available.

A few months later, and just down the road in South Lanarkshire, a second gamekeeper was convicted of possessing the banned pesticide Carbofuran, which had been found in his vehicle. No charges were brought for the discovery of a dead buzzard and a pheasant bait (both tested positive for Carbofuran) found on land where this gamekeeper worked. His sentence? A £635 fine for possession (maximum sentence available was a £5,000 fine and/or a six month custodial sentence).

Things may be about to change in Scotland. Environment Minister Paul Wheelhouse has, to his credit, instructed a review of wildlife crime penalties. The group’s remit is:

“To examine and report on how wildlife crime in Scotland is dealt with by the criminal courts, with particular reference to the range of penalties available and whether these are sufficient for the purposes of deterrence and whether they are commensurate with the damage to ecosystems that may be caused by wildlife crime”.

Now, while we don’t for one minute think that a potential increase in penalties will be the great panacea to stopping wildlife crime (for that to happen there also needs to be a significant change in investigation and enforcement procedures…..it’s pointless having a severe penalty in place if the criminal knows the chances of being caught are virtually nil…but more on that in due course), it is nevertheless an encouraging step, assuming of course that the review committee recommends an increase in penalties. They may not – see here for our previous comments on the membership of this review committee, which inexplicably includes the owner of a game-shooting estate.

This is where you come in. There is an opportunity for you to share your views with the review committee by answering a simple questionnaire that includes some carefully-thought out questions. The deadline for responding is two weeks today (21st November 2014) and the questionnaire can be filled in on-line and emailed to the committee. Please click here to download.

This is an excellent opportunity to have your say and perhaps have some influence on future wildlife crime sentencing options. Although the review is only applicable to sentencing options in Scotland, you do not have to live in Scotland to participate – it’s open to anyone from anywhere. And who knows, if improvements are made in the Scottish system then it provides more leverage for calls to do a similar review of wildlife crime penalties in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.

The review committee is due to report its findings (and recommendations) early in the New Year.

Stody Estate mass poisoner gets…..10 week suspended sentence

Gamekeeper Allen Lambert, convicted of mass raptor poisoning at Stody Estate, Norfolk, has been given a 10 week suspended sentence for poisoning 11 raptors (suspended for one year), a six week suspended sentence for possession of firearms and dead buzzards (suspended for one year) and has been ordered to pay £930 prosecution costs and an £80 victim surcharge.

This sentence will infuriate many. Lambert’s crimes contributed to one of the worst incidents of mass raptor poisoning in the UK. Although it’s not the worst incident, it’s right up there near the top of the list and is certainly the worst mass poisoning of raptors uncovered in England.

District Judge Peter Veits said Lambert’s crimes ‘had crossed the custody threshold’ but that his sentence would be suspended. Why? Sentencing is supposed to serve two purposes. It’s supposed to be a deterrent, not only to the convicted criminal, but also to others who may be contemplating committing the same crime. It’s also supposed to provide a punishment to the perpetrator for having acted criminally.

Does a suspended jail sentence meet any of these aims? No, it certainly does not.

What a wasted opportunity for the judiciary to send out a clear message to those who continue to commit abhorrent wildlife crimes. It’s so rare to actually get a conviction for poisoning; usually it’s the much lesser charge of ‘possession’ of banned poisons [in Scotland] or ‘storage’ of illegal poisons [in England] but here’s a gamekeeper who has been found guilty of actually poisoning 11 protected raptors. Sure, the judge’s sentencing options are constrained within statutory boundaries but the sentence in this case is nowhere near as strong as it could have been. Some of Lambert’s crimes are offences under the Wildlife & Countryside Act. Under this legislation, the maximum sentence, calculated for EACH offence is a £5,000 fine and a six month custodial sentence. That’s just for poisoning 11 birds – in Lambert’s case there are numerous other offences to consider, including firearms offences which usually carry a custodial sentence.

A suspended custodial sentence and a less than £1000 ‘fine’ (prosecution costs) for what Lambert did is absurdly lenient. According to the RSPB, since 2001, four gamekeepers have received suspended custodial sentences for persecution offences. During the same period, 12 egg collectors have actually been jailed. The inconsistency in wildlife crime sentencing is remarkable.

In Scotland there is currently a wildlife crime penalty review underway, at the behest of Environment Minister Paul Wheelhouse. There is an opportunity for you to participate, by filling in a questionnaire which seeks views on whether penalties for wildlife crime offences in Scotland are sufficient deterrent. The closing date is 21 November. Full details here.

So, Lambert’s pretty much got off scot free, but what of his (now former) employers, the Stody Estate? According to the BBC, ‘there is no evidence the estate owner, Charles MacNicol, knew about the poisonings. He wouldn’t tell BBC News whether he knew, or whether he condemned the killings’. Lambert was not sacked by Stody Estate, but instead was allowed to take early retirement, according to ITV news.

What we do know is the Stody Estate has received millions in agricultural subsidies over the years (see here), and as a result of blog readers’ efforts, the Rural Payments Agency is understood to be investigating to see whether financial penalties can be applied for cross-compliance offences (see here).

UPDATE 8/11/14: Here are the judge’s comments on Lambert’s sentencing:  DJ Peter Veits sentencing 6 Nov 2014

Media coverage of Lambert’s sentencing

RSPB press release here

BBC news here

BBC news video here

RSPB Investigations blog here

Daily Mail here

ITV news here

Norfolk Eastern Daily Press here

Telegraph here

Guardian here

Independent here

Norfolk Constabulary press statement here

Lambert 9 bz

Sentencing due for Stody Estate mass poisoner

Allen Lambert, the mass poisoning gamekeeper from Stody Estate, Norfolk, will be sentenced today following his convictions last month.

What sort of sentence does a convicted mass poisoner deserve? He was found guilty of poisoning 10 buzzards and 1 sparrowhawk. He was found guilty of the illegal storage and use of some of the most dangerous pesticides in the world. He was found guilty of having equipment capable of being used to prepare poisoned baits. He was found guilty of having nine dead buzzards in his possession.

Let’s hope the magistrate views this case with the seriousness it deserves.

Previous blogs on this case here, here, here.

GWCT concerned about missing gamekeepers

The Gamekeeper Welfare Conservation Trust (GWCT) aired concerns today about the fate of satellite-tagged gamekeepers that have mysteriously vanished in the last few months…..

Reservoir Cats at their satirical best – read the full story here

reservoir-cats

What we learned from last week’s RACCE mtg on wildlife crime

RACCELast Wednesday, the Scottish Government’s Rural Affairs, Climate Change and Environment Committee (RACCE) met to hear evidence on wildlife crime from two senior Police Scotland cops and a senior Fiscal from the Crown Office.

We’ve already blogged about what was said during the meeting about that ludicrous Police Scotland press statement on the Ross-shire Massacre (here). Needless to say, we were unimpressed.

But the discussion on that press statement was only a small part of a two-hour hearing. There was plenty of other discussion about various aspects of wildlife crime enforcement in Scotland and we learned a lot. For those of you who were unable to watch the video, the official transcript of the meeting has now been published in full: HERE.

So what did we learn? For a start, we learned that the RACCE Committee is full of very well-informed MSPs. They asked a lot of good questions and in some cases were quite dogged about pushing the Police for a proper answer. What was less impressive was their sometimes ready acceptance of what can only be described as weak and unsubstantiated responses from the Police and the Crown Office. Nevertheless, it was good to see both the Police and COPFS being asked to be accountable for a change – let’s hope we see more of that.

If you haven’t watched the video, we thoroughly recommend you take some time to read the minutes. Here are a few things that caught our attention:

1. In future years, the Government’s annual wildlife crime report will use data from calendar years instead of a mish mash of calendar and financial years, which makes any sort of analysis near impossible. That’s good.

2. Police Scotland are of the view that the wildlife crime figures are “not the tip of the iceberg“. Their view is apparently based on a “feeling” as opposed to hard evidence. Assistant Chief Constable Graham said:

“I do not have the sense that we are dealing with the tip of the iceberg, but I do have a sense that there are undoubtedly crimes that are not reported to the police and therefore go unrecorded. I could not judge what level that is at, but it does not feel as if we are getting only the tip of the iceberg“.

Detective Chief Superintendent Robbie Allan said: “I agree that the numbers are not the tip of the iceberg“.

Unfortunately, the Committee did not question them further on their “feelings” – it would have been interesting to have asked them how they account for the absence of breeding golden eagles and hen harriers on most land that is managed for driven grouse shooting, how they account for entire populations of raptors being constrained from their full distribution potential in prime breeding habitat that just happens to be managed for driven grouse shooting, how they account for all the unoccupied historical breeding sites, many of which just happen to be on driven grouse moors, why the majority of ‘missing’ satellite-tagged raptors are just happening to ‘disappear’ on driven grouse moors, and why most academics who publish on national and international wildlife crime enforcement widely accept that under-reporting is one of the main obstacles in the way of tackling wildlife crime.

Apparently under-reporting is not an issue in Scotland, because “it doesn’t feel that way” to Police Scotland.

3. The Police and SNH will meet monthly, starting in early November, to share information that could lead to the restriction of General Licences on land where wildlife crime is suspected. That’s very good. Although we still maintain that the General Licence restriction is not a restriction at all – it can easily be circumvented by the landowner/sporting agent/gamekeeper by them simply applying for an individual licence – we blogged about this here. The withdrawal of the General Licence is not a restriction at all; its simply a minor inconvenience which will mean the landowner/sporting agent/gamekeeper having to fill in an extra form. That’s it.

4. The admissibility of video evidence was discussed. Apparently it’s all about “proportionality and necessity” and “Police Scotland will not be routinely deploying these tactics“. In other words, The Untouchables are free to carry on as usual.

5. There was some discussion about the training of police wildlife crime officers. We’ll leave this one for now because we intend to examine this subject in greater detail in the near future.

6. Patrick Hughes from COPFS claimed: “The majority of animal welfare cases that we see are reported to us by Police Scotland, although some come from the SSPCA“. Really? That would be staggering. Unfortunately, Mr Hughes was not asked to substantiate this claim with any data. This would be a ripe topic for anyone with a mind to submit an FoI to the Crown Office: _EnquiryPoint@copfs.gsi.gov.uk (take note of the underscore at the start of this email address).

7. The subject of water bailiffs was discussed (pleased to see that some of those MSPs, and/or their advisors, are reading this blog!). We recently blogged about the substantial powers that water bailiffs have, including the power of arrest (see here). These bailiffs are appointed by landowners, to act in the landowners interests, they are not publicly accountable and have only the merest hint of any ‘training’. Why then, is there such opposition to extending the investigatory powers of the SSPCA, which wouldn’t even include the power of arrest, and whose inspectors already use wide powers when investigating animal welfare crimes? Well, according to Police Scotland (who, you’ll remember, objected to the proposed increase of powers to the SSPCA), the water bailiffs’ powers “are not used routinely” and “We do not have experience of water bailiffs who think that they are in a position to apprehend people“. Strange, then, that to ‘qualify’ (term used loosely) as a water bailiff, the candidate is encouraged to sit a test on the contents of the water bailiff training manual, which includes a considerable amount of detail about their powers of search and arrest.

8. Patrick Hughes of the Crown Office confirmed that currently two cases are proceeding under the vicarious liability legislation. According to him, the VL provision is “effective”….because the landowners have told him it is. On that basis, he’ll no doubt believe that raptor poisoning has stopped because Alex Hogg said the SGA had ‘stamped it out’ (see here).

Tomorrow, the Environment Minister will be giving evidence on wildlife crime to the RACCE Committee. You can watch live from 10am HERE.

First vicarious liability prosecution: part 3

Criminal proceedings continued today against Ninian Robert Hathorn Johnston Stewart in the first known vicarious liability prosecution under the WANE Act 2011.

Mr Johnston Stewart, the landowner of Glasserton & Physgill Estates, is charged with being vicariously liable for the criminal actions of Glasserton gamekeeper Peter Bell, who was convicted in 2013 of laying poisoned bait which killed a buzzard (Carbofuran) and possession of three banned pesticides (Carbofuran, Strychnine and Alphacloralose) (see here).

Today’s hearing was continued for an intermediate diet on 8th December 2014.

Previous blogs on this case here and here