Last week I blogged about the status of a fraud allegation against Suzanne Hall, a serving police officer and the wife and mother of convicted peregrine launderers Timothy and Lewis Hall (see here for background).
There was uncertainty about whether Hall’s fraud trial had been dropped and efforts to confirm the status of the prosecution with the Crown Office and Jedburgh Sheriff Court proved fruitless.
Thanks to the blog reader who today sent me a copy of an article that was published in the Border Telegraph on 20 Nov 2024, there is now some clarification. Here’s what the article said:
FRAUD CHARGE DROPPED
A former police officer accused of a fraud involving almost £10,000 has walked free after the charge was dropped. Forty-six-year-old Suzanne Hall had been charged with telling Scottish Borders Council she had just moved into her home at Lamberton Holdings, in Berwickshire, with her family in December 2020.
The charge had alleged it had been her sole or main residence sine August 2015, and she was due the local authority £9,613 in back dated council tax.
Hall had pleaded not guilty to the charge and a trial date had been fixed for Tuesday [19 Nov 2024] at Jedburgh Sheriff Court with an intermediate hearing on November 4.
But the case did not call on November 4 and the trial was cancelled.
A spokesperson for the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service said: “It is the duty of the Crown to keep cases under review, and following full and careful consideration of the facts and circumstances of the case, including the available admissible evidence, the Procurator Fiscal decided that there should be no further criminal proceedings at this time.
“The Crown reserves the right to proceed in the future should further evidence become available“.
The fraud charge originated from a police raid on her home in May 2021 in relation to the illegal sale of peregrine falcons.
Hall – who was a serving police officer at the time – initially faced wildlife charges but her pleas of not guilty were accepted by the Crown in December 2023.
The fraud charge remained outstanding but has now been dropped for the time being.
Police Scotland confirmed this week she is no longer a serving officer.
ENDS
Raptor Persecution UK 
[Ed: comment deleted – too close to the libel line]
leave the birds alone. Every day people are killing stealing birds of prey. What’s wrong with you
yet the populations of most birds of prey are higher than they have been , so I think hysteria isn’t helpful. Yes some people will kill raptors , but thankfully they are a tiny minority. They need to be stopped , but try and keep a sense of balance .
One your claim isn’t true, Merlin, Kestrel, Sparrowhawk, Buzzard and Montagu’s Harrier are all declining or have declined from higher populations. It is true of the general population that very few kill raptors but if you look at distributions and/or breeding success it is quite clear that a significant proportion of Peregrines in grouse moor areas are being prevented from breeding successfully or probably killed as successful breeding in these areas is at an all time low compared even to just 30 years ago. The same is true of Goshawks, Hen Harriers ( despite some population improvement to still just 15% of what it should be), Red Kites, Short eared Owls and Buzzards. that is without looking at both Eagle species in the grouse moor areas of Scotland. Besides which it is a crime to persecute these species however great or small number of folk are involved and thus it SHOULD be of both concern and a wish to correct it. Oh and nobody except folk like you are getting hysterical about it, just determined to bring it rightfully to an end.
i totally respect your reply. But why would you try to explain to absolute ignorant people who me I can tell by what they said they have no first hand knowledge of the state of population of birds of prey. This type of ignorance is dangerous. That is why I have replied to you and not them. I will not speak to these people.
“i totally respect your reply. But why would you try to explain to absolute ignorant people who me I can tell by what they said they have no first hand knowledge of the state of population of birds of prey.”
I think, maybe, to better illustrate the state of ignorance – sometimes for the benefit of others?
I can tell you, because I know Martin Perryman, that he does indeed have first hand knowledge of the populations of some birds of prey. So your claim of ignorance of somebody you don’t know, just because he has a different opinion to yours is, in itself, a display of equal ignorance.
So can you tell me exactly how his opinion is “dangerous”? Could it be argued that your opinion is also dangerous because you will not engage in discourse with anyone who’s opinion you don’t like?
Let me remind you that it’s known the peregrine population has increased to beyond saturation point overall in the UK over the last 25 years since they started breeding in all the major cities, whilst at the same time another responder pointed out kestrel populations have declined by 40% over the same period. I would dispute their comment that peregrines have also declined by 43% in the same period when the clear and abundant video evidence of nesting success suggests otherwise. Since we also know larger raptors will hunt smaller raptors, do you think there may be a correlation there?
I know you will also dismiss this comment because it challenges what you want to believe. There’s the real danger, one of closed minds…
“Let me remind you that it’s known the peregrine population has increased to beyond saturation point overall in the UK over the last 25 years since they started breeding in all the major cities”
Sorry, how is that known? Where is the published data?
https://data.bto.org/trends_explorer/
The BTO quotes specifically for Peregrine: 42.9% decline for 27 years, 25.4% decline for 10 years and 16.8% decline for 5 years (up to 2022).
But it isn’t all downhill: from the graph, it shows a temporary increase in the Peregrine population from about 2010 to 2015, but that is then followed by a significantly steeper decline to 2022.
“Since we also know larger raptors will hunt smaller raptors, do you think there may be a correlation there?”
Well, no, not in this case. Peregrines, as you say, spread into cities (where they found lots of Pigeons to eat) whereas Kestrels – with which you think there may be a negative population correlation – prefer rough, open, grassland and heaths (to hunt Voles); habitats which are just not common in cities at all.
If you look at the population graphs for Peregrine and Kestrel, you will see that both declined in parallel during the period 1995 – 2000. So, not a negative correlation at all (ie one is not apparently eating all of the others and doing well). 2000 – 2010, the Peregrine population was pretty stable, whereas the Kestrel first increased, and then fell dramatically. So, no correlation there at all, of any kind. Then 2010 – 2015, the Peregrine population increased, but the Kestrel remained more-or-less stable.
Hi Chris, where on earth did you get this idea from: “Let me remind you that it’s known the peregrine population has increased to beyond saturation point overall in the UK over the last 25 years…” . “Known ” by who – please expand?
It could feasibly be true (though I would like evidence) of some urban or coastal populations, or even some semi-rural populations in quarries on the fringes of urban areas. But in vast swathes of hundreds of thousands of acres of uplands of northern England and Scotland where DGS is the main land use, successful breeding pairs are an absolute rarity – and it is in the last 25-30 years that this has got much worse . That isn’t just my own anecdotal experience, but is consistently documented again and again in the well respected reports of the likes of NERF and SRSG (their previous years reports are available online).
I would hazard to say that if it wasn’t for the fact that Peregrines had adapted to urban environments, their population would be almost as perilous as Hen Harriers.
I presume you will be supplying some actual decent data to support your assertion?
Also, lose points for using a term like “hysteria”.
“yet the populations of most birds of prey are higher than they have been”
“have been” when, exactly? Pre invention of the shotgun? 100 years ago? 20 years ago? 5 years ago?
There are no BTO population statistics for many species: Golden Eagle, Goshawk, Hen Harrier, Honey Buzzard, Long-eared Owl, Merlin, Montagu’s Harrier, Osprey, Rough-legged Buzzard, Short-eared Owl and White-tailed Eagle.
For others, Barn Owls are down 14% for the last 5 years, Buzzards are down 8%, Hobby are down 5% over 25 years, Kestrel are down 40% over 25 years, Little Owl are down 70% over 25 years, Marsh Harrier are up 16% over the last 5 years, Peregrine are down 17% over the last 5 years (and down 43% over the last 25 years), Red Kite are up 40% over the last 5 years, Sparrow Hawk are down 23% over the last 25 years and Tawny Owl are down 20% over the last 5 years.
That shows 8 species in decline, with just 2 increasing, despite the ban on DDT and despite all our conservation efforts, including legal protection!
All from https://data.bto.org/trends_explorer/
So, where are the published statistics to support your claim?
We deserve a proper explanation as to the dropping of both sets of charges, and whether alternative charges could have been considered
I agree, but the Police generally do not like to wash their dirty knickers in public, because it can reflect very badly on them:-(
I don’t think that’s a fair comment, Keith. Police forces routinely publish the details of officers who’ve been sacked for gross misconduct etc. Besides, in this case the decision to prosecute or not would have been made by the Crown Office rather than the police.
Maybe the Police have improved and I am behind the times… But the BBC recently (Feb 2023) had to rely upon FOI requests for Scotland (in England and Wales there is a ‘barred list’ giving total numbers and rank, but I do not think names are ever included – I’ve not found any, unless specifically covered by some item in a local press)
“Nearly 50 police officers leave the force during complaints cases”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-64629292
I do not know how many of the ‘recommendations’ remain outstanding or, indeed, if this argument still applies: “Angiolini made 111 recommendations and it’s not good enough that the majority of the most significant ones, including an end to officers being able to quit while under investigation, have been kicked into the long grass.”
How can the public have confidence in the protection of our wildlife with such an emergency when cases are dropped so easily? This adds yet more fuel to the fire 🔥
[Ed: comment deleted as libellous]