Police Scotland Wildlife Crime Liaison Officer Constable Ann Ashman said:
“From enquiries carried out so far, we know this sparrowhawk has been poisoned with insecticide carbosulfan, resulting in a harrowing death.
“Sparrowhawks are protected under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981, and it is an offence to intentionally or recklessly kill or injure them.
“The use of carbosulfan is illegal, with the substance having been banned in the UK since 2008. This substance can cause death in humans, so its illegal use is extremely reckless.
“We are carrying out an investigation in relation to this incident and will be working with a range of partner organisations. The public has an important role to help up combat wildlife crime. If you see anything suspicious, please report it to us via 101, or anonymously to Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111.”
Anyone with information is asked to contact Police Scotland on 101, quoting incident number 1179 of 2 October, 2025.
Media attention has been drawn to the Yorkshire Dales National Park this week, following the RSPB’s press release on the suspicious disappearance of a satellite-tagged Hen Harrier named ‘Sita’.
When it comes to the illegal killing of birds of prey, the Yorkshire Dales National Park is rarely out of the news, and that’s hardly surprising when 29 satellite-tagged Hen Harriers have gone ‘missing’ there and 39 other raptors have been found poisoned, trapped or shot there since 2015, including Peregrines, Hen Harriers, Red Kites and Buzzards.
Yorkshire Dales National Park. Photo by Ruth Tingay
Given these appalling figures, the RSPB has described the Yorkshire Dales National Park as a ‘no-fly zone for birds of prey’.
High profile cases within the National Park have included the conviction of a gamekeeper who was filmed shooting two Short-eared Owls on a grouse moor and then stamping the corpse of one of them into the peat and shoving the other one inside a drystone wall (here); a gamekeeper filmed on a grouse moor using a tethered Eagle Owl to attract Buzzards that he then shot and killed from close range (here); the stamping to death of four Hen Harrier chicks in a nest on a grouse moor (after obscuring the camera pointing at the nest, here); the grisly death of a Hen Harrier caused by his head and leg being pulled off whilst he was still alive (here); and three individuals caught on camera on a grouse moor discussing the shooting and killing of a Buzzard and a Raven before apparently shooting and killing a Hen Harrier (here) – one gamekeeper has been charged with conspiracy to kill a Hen Harrier, he has pleaded not guilty and his case will proceed to trial in January 2026 after his barrister failed in his attempt to have the case thrown out on a legal technicality.
The Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority has also long recognised the extent of this criminal activity and has responded to public concern (e.g. see here and here). Earlier this year the Park Authority terminated its five-year ‘partnership’ with the grouse shooting industry to tackle these crimes, after recognising the futility of this endeavour. Two conservation organisations (the RSPB and the Northern England Raptor Forum) had already walked away from the sham in 2023 and 2024 respectively.
In an article published a couple of days ago by the Craven Herald & Pioneer, Mark Corner, a member of the Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority is quoted saying the continued illegal killing of raptors in the Park was “a crying shame“.
He added: “As the member champion for the natural environment, I’m personally embarrassed that we are the worst spot in the country in terms of the illegal killing of birds.”
In the same article, there’s an hilarious quote from the Yorkshire Dales Moorland Group, which is one of a number of regional groups set up in 2015 to represent local grouse moor owners and their gamekeepers in an attempt to counter the bad publicity about ongoing illegal raptor persecution. I think that members of most of these regional moorland groups have been, or still are, the subject of police investigations into illegal raptor persecution.
A spokesperson for the Yorkshire Dales Moorland Group reportedly told the reporter that ‘hen harrier numbers were at a 200-year high across the uplands’.
That’s simply not true – Hen Harrier breeding attempts on grouse moors across the north of England have been in sharp decline over the last two years – the only areas where they remain stable is on land managed for conservation rather than for Red Grouse shooting.
According to its FaceBook page, the Yorkshire Dales Moorland Group claims to have “around 100,000 acres of managed uplands here in the Dales where the estates are members of this group (virtually all of the moors)“.
Why is it then, there were only two Hen Harrier breeding attempts in 2025 across the whole of the Yorkshire Dales and neighbouring Nidderdale? I’d like the Moorland Group to provide a plausible explanation for these absences.
The Yorkshire Dales Moorland Group also told the Craven Herald reporter:
“Our keepers have and will always assist the police in searches for missing persons, lost dogs or missing birds. Tag failure is rare but not unheard of.
“The default accusation that persecution is responsible is regrettable. The conservation work undertaken by moor keepers is commendable as can be seen by the abundance of raptors and other rare species in the Dales“.
What “abundance of raptors” are those then? All the dead ones? Or just the ones that are allowed to breed because they don’t pose any threat to Red Grouse stocks?
And if these grouse shooting estates are so keen to help the police, how many of them signed the letter last year agreeing to allow the police to enter the land and use equipment for the purposes of crime prevention and detection? Did any of them sign it?
And if these gamekeepers are so keen to help police investigations, how many of them have given ‘no comment’ responses when interviewed about suspected raptor persecution crimes on these moors? Maybe it’d be quicker to count how many gamekeeper didn’t give a ‘no comment’ interview.
The article also quotes Alex Farrell, Head of Uplands at BASC:
“As a committed conservation organisation, we are taking progressive steps with our partners to oversee the continued recovery of hen harriers.
“Figures released by Natural England today show that collaborative effort resulted in 106 fledged hen harrier chicks in England this year – up from 80 last year“.
What “progressive steps” is BASC taking?
Oh, and those figures released by Natural England show that the small increase in Hen Harrier fledging rates are in spite of, not because of, any so-called ‘collaborative effort’ from the grouse shooting industry.
Natural England has finally got around to publishing the data for the 2025 Hen Harrier breeding season, which demonstrate very clear differences between areas managed for conservation and those managed as privately-owned grouse moors.
The headline on Natural England’s blog (‘Numbers of nesting hen harriers in England have risen slightly in 2025‘) is technically accurate but I would argue it’s also cynically misleading because it only tells half the story, and the half that’s missing provides the all-important context required to understand the ongoing threats facing Hen Harriers in England (and some other parts of the UK) – that of the illegal killing of this species on moorland managed for driven grouse shooting.
I say this is cynical because the headline as it’s written is handy for (a) Natural England, (b) Defra and (c) the grouse shooting industry, who can (and will) point to it as an indication of a so-called ongoing ‘conservation success story’ when they’re being criticised by conservationists for not doing enough to tackle the relentless persecution of this species.
If you bother to delve deeper than the headline and drill down in to the figures, it’s crystal clear that Hen Harrier persecution is still so rampant on many driven grouse moors it’s suppressing the distribution of this species at a national level.
According to Natural England’s data, there were 39 nesting attempts in 2025, of which 33 were successful, up from 34 attempts (25 successful) in 2024. Natural England has presented the breeding attempts data in the following table:
The context to these data, which Natural England has failed to include, is the predominant land use in each of those areas. If you’re a casual reader with no understanding of those areas, you’ll think that Hen Harriers are doing ok in some areas and not so much in others, but you’ll have no clue about the differences in land management between those areas and therefore the influence of that land management on Hen Harrier nesting attempts.
I’ve annotated Natural England’s table to show what’s actually going on:
You can now see the predominant land management in each area and it becomes apparent that the areas predominantly managed for conservation (in green) are the areas where most Hen Harrier nesting attempts took place, compared to the low number of nesting attempts on privately-owned grouse moors (red) where Hen Harriers are not welcome.
For example, in Bowland, Lancashire, there were 15 nesting attempts this year, and all of them except one were on moorland owned by United Utilities, wardened by the RSPB.
In the whole of the North Pennines, the only two nesting attempts were on the RSPB’s Geltsdale Reserve in Cumbria.
But even on these protected sites, Hen Harriers weren’t safe; four breeding males ‘disappeared’ during the breeding season, suspected to have been killed whilst hunting on nearby grouse moors, and nests were only successful thanks to the intervention of the RSPB.
In the Peak District, the only two nesting attempts were on moorland managed by the National Trust.
In the Yorkshire Dales and Nidderdale, the only two nesting attempts were on privately owned grouse moors, down from a high of 15 nesting attempts in 2023. Interestingly, raptor fieldworkers report that there weren’t any nesting attempts on Swinton Estate this year – the grouse shooting industry’s poster child for Defra’s ludicrous Hen Harrier brood meddling trial where the estate championed the removal of some Hen Harrier chicks which were reared in captivity before being released elsewhere. Word has it that the grouse shooting at Swinton has now been leased and that Natural England fieldworkers were not welcome this year. There are also unverified reports that the winter roost site on Swinton Estate ‘is no longer there’. More on that if I receive further information.
Hen Harrier nesting attempts in Northumberland this year are a little less clear. There were 18 known attempts, and the majority of those are likely to have been on Forestry England-managed land at Kielder, a known hotspot for Hen Harriers in recent years, although it’s possible that a couple of attempts may have been recorded on nearby privately-owned grouse moors.
So it looks like there were probably between 3-5 Hen Harrier nesting attempts on privately owned grouse moors in England in 2025; the rest of the 39 nesting attempts took place on land managed for conservation.
It would be helpful if Natural England would publish the associated land management information alongside the data on Hen Harrier nesting attempts, and the subsequent outcome of those attempts – it used to do this. Why has it stopped?
To be fair, beyond the headline and the table in Natural England’s blog, there are some clear statements acknowledging the ongoing issue of Hen Harrier persecution, although in my opinion they could still be much more explicit about the unequivocal link between HH persecution and driven grouse moors:
‘Hen harriers are rare primarily because they are killed and prevented from nesting successfully‘ [on many driven grouse moors];
and
‘This population recovery remains fragile, and efforts to reduce illegal killing and disturbance of hen harriers remain necessary across muchmany driven grouse moorsofin the English uplands‘.
It’s also notable that Natural England did not mention any of this year’s suspected and confirmed Hen Harrier persecution crimes in its blog, and nor has it updated its database on the fates of its satellite-tracked Hen Harriers. The last update was in April 2025. Typically, NE has updated the database every 3-4 months – it’s now been six months. Natural England, along with various police forces and the National Wildlife Crime Unit’s Hen Harrier Taskforce, is still suppressing information about an estimated 20 incidents, some of them dating back over 18 months.
In May this year I blogged about a young satellite-tagged Hen Harrier named ‘Sita’ who had disappeared under suspicious circumstances from a winter roost site on an unnamed grouse moor in the Yorkshire Dales National Park in February 2025 (here).
There was very little information available – neither North Yorkshire Police or the National Wildlife Crime Unit’s Hen Harrier Taskforce had made any statements or appeals for information.
Eight months on, today the RSPB has helpfully published some information about Sita’s disappearance having been told by North Yorkshire Police and the NWCU that there were no further lines of enquiry.
The RSPB’s press release is as follows:
ANOTHER HEN HARRIER LIKELY TO HAVE BEEN SHOT IN THE YORKSHIRE DALES NATIONAL PARK
The satellite tag of a one-year-old Hen Harrier sent its last transmission from land managed for grouse shooting between Swaledale and Wensleydale
Illegal persecution of Hen Harriers is the main factor limiting the recovery of this rare, red-listed species in the UK
This Hen Harrier is the 29th to suspiciously disappear in the national park since 2015 with each tag worth £3000.
As part of the RSPB’s on-going Hen Harrier monitoring, a female bird, named Sita was fitted with a satellite tag in summer 2024, fledging from her nest in the Forest of Bowland. Subsequently, her tag data showed that she had settled at a wintering site on moorland between Reeth and Redmire, in the northeast of the Yorkshire Dales National Park. However, concern was raised when Sita’s tag stopped transmitting from a roost site on 27 February 2025.
Hen Harrier ‘Sita’ being fitted with a satellite tag in Bowland in 2024. Photo by Northern England Raptor Forum (NERF).
When sat-tagged Hen Harriers die naturally, the tag will continue to transmit, allowing recovery of the bird, which can then undergo analysis to determine the exact cause of death. However, it is accepted that sudden, unexplained transmission loss without signs of tag malfunction in this species sadly indicates that the bird is likely to have been shot, especially if no tag or body is then found.
The RSPB reported the incident to North Yorkshire Police, the National Wildlife Crime Unit (NWCU) and their Hen Harrier Task Force, however, despite launching a police investigation neither Sita nor her tag have been found. In late August, almost six months after the incident took place, the Police and NWCU formally confirmed that there were no further lines of enquiry. Sita is one of several satellite tagged Hen Harriers that have disappeared under suspicious circumstances this year, with several cases being referred to the NWCU in recent weeks.
Dominated by grouse moorland, the Yorkshire Dales National Park, is sadly one of the most well-known hotspots for bird of prey killing. Between 2015 and 2024, 67 confirmed or suspected incidents were recorded within or near the National Park. These include 39 incidents where birds of prey (including Peregrine, Hen Harriers, Red Kites and Buzzards) were targeted, poisoned, trapped or shot and is the location where 28 suspicious disappearances of tagged Hen Harriers have taken place. Sita’s loss brings the total to 29.
Hen Harrier Action, the wildlife conservation charity that sponsored Sita’s satellite tag from public donations, expressed deep concern at her disappearance and the continuing threat to these birds.
Paul Samuels, Hen Harrier Action Co-chair: “The Yorkshire Dales National Park is a landscape where Hen Harriers ought to be thriving. Yet time and time again headlines about the Park are dominated by illegal persecution stories, most often associated with grouse moors. Sita’s short life and sad end should be a catalyst for change.”
As repeated police investigations have shown, crimes against Hen Harriers are strongly linked to land managed for grouse shooting, where some individuals illegally kill birds of prey as they are regarded as a threat to their commercial grouse stocks. The RSPB is calling for licensing of grouse shooting to be introduced in England – mirroring the system introduced in Scotland in 2024 under the Wildlife Management and Muirburn (Scotland) Act 2024. Under such legislation, estates implicated in bird of prey persecution could lose their licence to shoot grouse.
Howard Jones, RSPB Senior Investigations Officer: “The most effective way to stop the killing of these incredible birds is through licensing grouse shooting in England. It’s very simple, the sooner this is introduced the quicker Hen Harriers will get the protection that they urgently need.”
If you have information about anyone killing birds of prey which you wish to report anonymously, call the RSPB’s confidential Raptor Crime Hotline on 0300 999 0101.
ENDS
This is the first time we’ve been given any level of detail about Sita’s last known location, on a grouse moor between Reeth and Redmire on the north-east side of the Yorkshire Dales National Park.
If you look at the land ownership in that area (courtesy of Guy Shrubsole’s excellent website, Who Owns England?), you’ll see there are at least two large grouse shooting estates between Reeth and Redmire:
The turquoise area is Grinton Estate and the green area is Bolton Estate. I don’t know who owns the unmapped area of moorland to the east. There’s no suggestion that any of them were involved in Sita’s suspicious disappearance. I can’t pin down the Hen Harrier’s last known location with any more precision because, sensibly, the RSPB has not publicised the location of the winter roost from which Sita vanished, and nor would I want them to.
I applaud the RSPB for releasing the information they have – there’s no legitimate justification for North Yorkshire Police and the NWCU’s Hen Harrier Taskforce to suppress this case. None whatsoever, especially when they’ve stated they have no further lines of enquiry.
The withholding of information about ‘missing’ and/or confirmed illegally killed Hen Harriers is an ongoing issue, involving several other police forces in northern England. I’m aware of at least 14 cases involving the disappearance and/or illegal killing of Hen Harriers that are currently being withheld from the public, some of them dating back over 18 months so there can be no excuse about not wanting to jeopardise investigations, which in all likelihood have come to a similar dead end (pun intended).
I also noted the following sentence in the RSPB’s press release:
‘Sita is one of several satellite tagged Hen Harriers that have disappeared under suspicious circumstances this year, with several cases being referred to the NWCU in recent weeks‘ [emphasis is mine].
So just how many suspected or confirmed incidents of Hen Harrier persecution are being withheld, and why? It sounds like we’re quickly heading towards 20 cases.
The Scottish Government’s nature advisory agency, NatureScot, has been now been procrastinating for 17 months on whether to impose a sanction on an estate in relation to the ‘shooting and killing’ of a sleeping Golden Eagle called Merrick.
Merrick was a young satellite-tagged Golden Eagle, released in south Scotland in 2022 as part of the South Scotland Golden Eagle Project, a lottery-funded conservation initiative which translocated young Golden Eagles from various sites across north Scotland to boost the tiny remnants of the Golden Eagle breeding population in south Scotland that had previously been decimated by illegal persecution and had become isolated by geographic barriers.
Camera trap photo of golden eagle Merrick in 2022, from South Scotland Golden Eagle Project
A year after her release, which had seen her fly around south Scotland and down into northern England and back, on 12 October 2023 Merrick’s satellite tag suddenly and inexplicably stopped transmitting from a roost site in the Moorfoot Hills in the Scottish Borders where she’d been sleeping overnight.
A project officer from the South Scotland Golden Eagle Project went to her last known location where he found Merrick’s feathers and blood directly below her roost tree. Police Scotland later determined from the evidence that she’d been ‘shot and killed’ and that someone had then ‘removed her body and destroyed her satellite tag’ (see here).
There was limited scope for anyone to be charged and prosecuted for killing this eagle unless someone in the know came forward with sufficient evidence to identify the individual(s) responsible. In addition, the prospect of an estate having its grouse-shooting licence withdrawn as a consequence of this crime was zero, given that this offence took place prior to the enactment of the Wildlife & Muirbun (Scotland) Act 2024.
That just left a General Licence restriction as a possible sanction. Not that I’d describe a GL restriction as an effective sanction, for reasons that have been explored previously on this blog (e.g. here and here). Nevertheless, it’s still something and, given the high-profile of Merrick’s death, you might think that making a decision on whether to impose a GL restriction would be a high priority for NatureScot.
I wrote about NatureScot’s procrastination on this case in August (see here), after receiving a response to a Freedom of Information request I’d lodged in June 2025. That response confirmed that NatureScot had received an information package from Police Scotland, on which it would base its GL restriction decision, in April 2024.
Seventeen months on and we’re now at the end of September 2025 and there’s still no sign of a decision from NatureScot.
What’s the hold up? Why hasn’t this decision been a priority for NatureScot?
What sort of message does NatureScot’s procrastination send out to others who might be thinking of ‘getting rid’ of a Golden Eagle in south Scotland, or any other part of Scotland for that matter?
The consequences became very clear yesterday when it was announced that two more satellite-tagged Golden Eagles from the South Scotland project had ‘disappeared’ in suspicious circumstances.
Press release from Police Scotland, 29 September 2025:
APPEAL FOR MISSING GOLDEN EAGLE
Detectives are appealing for information after a satellite-tagged golden eagle disappeared in the hills to the north of Langholm.
The tag on Tarras, a four-year-old male golden eagle, has displayed suspicious patterns and data reports, and officers are concerned he may have come to harm between Wednesday, 27 August, 2025 and Friday, 29 August, 2025.
A full search of the area where his tag last transmitted has been carried out using specialist resources, including dogs trained in tracing birds and their tags, however neither the bird nor the satellite tag have been recovered.
Tarras was translocated to the area in 2021 as part of the South of Scotland Golden Eagle Project.
Officers and wildlife partners have subsequently been unable to trace his mate, Wren. Although there is nothing to suggest she has come to harm, her disappearance coincides with that of Tarras and concerns are growing for her welfare.
Detective Sergeant David Lynn, National Wildlife Crime Coordinator, said: “The data received from Tarras’ tag suggests that he has come to harm to the north of Langholm and efforts remain ongoing to locate him and his tag.
“We cannot say for certain that Wren has also come to harm, but her disappearance is worrying.
“Our investigation remains ongoing, and we are working with a range of partner agencies to establish more details around the disappearance of both birds.
“I would urge anyone with any information that may assist to contact us.”
Anyone with any information should call 101, quoting reference number 1987 of Friday, 26 September, 2025. Alternatively, please contact Crimestoppers though 0800 555 111, where anonymity can be maintained.
ENDS
There’s quite a bit of information missing from this press release, just as there was from the other recent press release about the poisoned Red Kite found in Perthshire.
This was a satellite-tagged territorial pair so the sudden disappearance of both of them at the same time is highly suspicious.
Why isn’t there any information provided about their last known positions according to their tag data? A police search has already taken place, so it’s not as though naming the location would provide a suspect with a chance of hiding or removing evidence.
It’d be very interesting to know the proximity of the nearest Red-legged Partridge release pen to the eagles’ last known locations…
In November last year, conservation campaign group Wild Justice published a report (Collateral Damage) highlighting shockingly high levels of rodenticides (rat poisons) found in Buzzards and Red Kites and showed how the UK Government was ignoring the evidence (see press release here).
This led to a flurry of Parliamentary questions (see here) and promises for a review in 2025.
Since then, further reports show that the use of Second Generation Anticoagulant Rodenticides (SGARs), particularly Brodicfacoum, is causing widespread harm to wildlife including Foxes, Otters and Peregrines (see here).
A poisoned Red Kite. Photo by Dr Marc Ruddock
The Health & Safety Executive (HSE) which controls the approval regime in the UK for rodenticides and decides what can and cannot be used, has announced a consultation on rodenticides. The consultation is looking at what alternatives to SGARs are available.
If the HSE is going to continue to approve SGARs for use, it needs to show that no other viable alternatives are available.
Apart from taking preventative measures, there ARE other viable alternatives, but the chemical companies aren’t keen for these to be promoted because SGARs are highly profitable financially, even though they’re disastrous for many species, especially raptors, from an ecological perspective.
The alternatives include:
Non-SGAR alternative rodenticides such as Cholecalciferol, with which the targeted rodent stops feeding once a lethal intake has been consumed (reducing risk of secondary poisoning of predators and scavengers).
Zinc Phosphide – a highly effective acute rodenticide.
DR8 – a product developed with the support of the New Zealand Government which is specific to rats and poses no apparent secondary poisoning risk.
Carbon Dioxide gas (also known as Rat Ice).
Contraceptive products such as ContraPest, which controls rat populations by restricting rodent reproduction.
The HSE’s public consultation is not especially user-friendly, and nor does it seem to have been widely promoted (apart from amongst the chemical companies who will no doubt be pushing for the HSE to retain its approval for SGARs and to ignore the alternatives).
However, Wild Justice has prepared some helpful guidance on how to complete the consultation and is encouraging as many members of the public as possible to take part – you’ll find the guidance here.
The deadline for completing this consultation is this coming Tuesday (30 September 2025) so we don’t have long.
Please, if you have some time today, have a go at completing the consultation and help put pressure on the HSE to remove, or at least limit, the use of SGARs.
The trial of an 87-year-old man, accused of multiple offences linked to alleged raptor persecution, has been put on hold after his defence lawyer told the court he intends to apply for Judicial Review of the judge’s ruling that the case should not be dropped.
Brian Chorlton, of Morkery Lane, Castle Bytham, Lincolnshire, was summoned to court in April 2025 following reports that birds of prey were being poisoned in the Castle Bytham area.
In May 2025, Chorlton appeared at Lincoln Magistrates’ Court and pleaded not guilty to 11 charges relating to the unapproved or unlawful storage of the chemical Aldicarb, possession of a poisoner’s kit, and possession and use of four pole traps. The trial was set to take place in October 2025.
However, on 18 September 2025 a case management hearing took place at Lincoln Magistrates’ Court where the defence submitted three separate legal arguments calling for the case to be dismissed. I won’t elaborate on those arguments at this stage but they are unusual, and are not related to the use of covert surveillance as is often the case.
The District Judge rejected all three legal arguments and the application to dismiss the case was rejected.
The District Judge said he intended for the trial to proceed in October but offered a further case management hearing, due to take place one week later, to allow the defence time to consider the ruling.
That second case management trial took place at Lincoln Magistrates’ Court yesterday (25 September 2025) and the defence announced its intention to apply to the High Court for Judicial Review of the judge’s earlier ruling.
This means the original trial date (October 2025) has now been vacated. There will be a further case management hearing in January 2026 for the defence to update the court on its application for Judicial Review.
Royal Courts of Justice in London. Photo by Ruth Tingay
The application for Judicial Review is a process whereby the defence will be seeking permission from a High Court judge to proceed to a full Judicial Review. This typically takes between two to six months but can take longer, depending on the court’s schedule and the availability of a judge and also whether the judge wants an oral hearing or is satisfied with the written submissions on which to make a decision.
If permission is granted, the case will then move to a full Judicial Review and that can take up to a year before it’s heard, sometimes longer, and if the judge’s decision is reserved, there can then be a further wait, often months, waiting for the judgement to be delivered.
NB: As criminal proceedings are still live, comments have been switched off.
Earlier this month a judge ruled that covert video surveillance obtained by the RSPB is admissible evidence in the prosecution of gamekeeper Racster Dingwall, who has been charged in relation to the alleged shooting of a Hen Harrier on a grouse moor (Coniston & Grassington Estate) in the Yorkshire Dales National Park on 2nd October 2024.
Mr Dingwall pleaded not guilty to two charges at an earlier court hearing at Skipton Magistrates’ Court in May 2025. Those two charges are:
Possession of an article capable of being used to commit a summary offence under Section 1 to 13 or 15 to 17 of the Wildlife & Countryside Act;
Encourage/assist in the commission of a summary offence believing it will be committed.
The pre-trial hearing at York Magistrates’ Court on 9 September 2025 was specifically to hear legal argument about the admissibility of the RSPB’s video evidence, on which this prosecution is based.
I wrote briefly about the judge’s decision to accept the RSPB’s video evidence at the hearing on 9 September and said I would elaborate further when I had the time.
The following commentary seeks to provide more information about the judge’s decision and is based entirely on the notes I made during that hearing.
York Magistrates’ Court. Photo by Ruth Tingay
This pre-trial hearing was held before District Judge Adrian Lower. The involvement of a District Judge (professionally and legally qualified) is perhaps the reason why this case moved from Skipton Magistrates’ Court to York Magistrates’ Court.
District Judges don’t tend to sit in the smaller, or rural courts, but where a case is legally complex then there is often a request to move the case to another court to be heard before a District Judge rather than the lay magistrates (also known as Justices of the Peace) in a smaller court, who are volunteers and not legally trained/qualified to the extent of a District Judge.
Mr Dingwall and his solicitor did not attend the pre-trial hearing at York on 9 September 2025 – District Judge (DJ) Lower acknowledged that Mr Dingwall had been excused (the reason for his absence wasn’t given in open court).
The sole representative in court for Mr Dingwall was his barrister, Mr Justin Rouse KC. Long-term blog readers may recognise this name – Mr Rouse KC represented a gamekeeper from the Bleasdale Estate in Bowland, Lancashire in 2017-2018 who had been charged with nine offences relating to the alleged killing of two Peregrines on this grouse-shooting estate in 2016 in appalling circumstances. The prosecution had relied heavily on covert surveillance provided by the RSPB but the case collapsed when the presiding District Judge accepted Mr Rouse’s defence argument that the evidence should be ruled inadmissible (not necessarily on the strength of Mr Rouse’s arguments but more likely on the weakness of the prosecution lawyer, who was hopelessly underprepared for court- see here for detailed commentary on that case).
Appearing for the prosecution (CPS – Crown Prosecution Service) at York Magistrates’ Court on 9 September 2025 was Mr Jody Beaumont.
The hearing opened with DJ Lower stating that he’d read the submissions from both sides (about the admissibility of the RSPB’s video surveillance) and that he didn’t intend to hear a repetition of those submissions in court. He asked whether Mr Rouse KC and Mr Beaumont had anything new to add and both replied that they didn’t.
No doubt DJ Lower wanted to save valuable court time, but his decision not to have the legal arguments presented in open court makes it very difficult to provide an informed commentary on what happened next, because I don’t have the benefit of knowing the exact details of each side’s position.
Nevertheless, a general sense of the defence’s argument could be gleaned from some of the remarks made later by DJ Lower and it became apparent that there were two main issues to be discussed – the admissibility of the video evidence and an issue about disclosure.
The interpretation that follows is based on my understanding of what was said and should be viewed with appropriate caution given the circumstances just described.
It was clear that Mr Rouse KC for the defence had made an application to the court to exclude the RSPB’s video evidence (and thus have the case dismissed), under Section 78 of the Police & Criminal Evidence Act 1984 (PACE).
Section 78:
‘…..In any proceedings the court may refuse to allow evidence on which the prosecution proposes to rely to be given if it appears to the court, that, having regard to all the circumstances, including the circumstances in which the evidence was obtained, the admission of the evidence would have such an adverse effect on the fairness of the proceedings that the court ought not to admit it’.
DJ Lower said that Mr Rouse’s view was that the RSPB should be viewed as a public authority in the way it gathered evidence (i.e. regulated by various legislation such as the Human Rights Act 1998 & Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 (RIPA) which controls the manner of covert surveillance operations) – this is a very similar argument to the one Mr Rouse used in the Bleasdale case and, if accepted by the court in this latest case, would result in the RSPB’s evidence being ruled inadmissible because the RSPB hadn’t operated by the provisions required of a public authority in undertaking covert surveillance on private land (i.e. needing authorisation).
DJ Lower said he could not agree with the submission that the RSPB was a ‘public authority’. He said that the RSPB is arguably a substantial business, “a charity like no other“, but that although the RSPB was involved in the investigation, the material had been handed to North Yorkshire Police. He continued, “There is bound to be close coordination between the RSPB and North Yorkshire Police but that doesn’t mean that the RSPB becomes a public authority and is regulated as such by various legislation“.
DJ Lower agreed that there needs to be consideration about whether the RSPB should be considered a public authority but that this was not a decision a judge could make – it should be for Parliament to consider.
He said that the crux of the S.78 application was – regardless of whether the RSPB is or isn’t a public authority – would submission of the evidence have such an adverse effect on the fairness of proceedings? He said this was a discretionary judgement for the court to make and in his judgement, “there would be no adverse affect“.
He continued: “The RSPB evidence has been subject to review by the CPS and it is their decision to prosecute or not. I cannot see how admitting the evidence gathered from the RSPB would have an adverse effect on the fairness of proceedings. I am not prepared to dismiss the case“.
DJ Lower then referred to an alleged abuse of process, claimed by the defence (the details of this are unknown). DJ Lower asked Mr Rouse whether he had anything more to say on that allegation and Mr Rouse accepted that it had been addressed by the judge.
The legal argument then moved on to the disclosure issues (the details of which are unknown, which made the discussion confusing).
There seemed to be an argument about the defence not yet having had access to between 70-80 hours worth of RSPB video footage. Mr Beaumont (CPS) told the court that there was an ongoing discussion about how to manage the files and send them to the defence, but given that ‘senior management’ were involved, “this should be sorted out very soon“.
The defence was interested in a series of photographs taken by the RSPB between 16 September – 19 October 2024 consisting of “vehicles, houses, males, dogs and moorland“. Mr Rouse thought they may be capable of undermining the defence.
Mr Rouse said that because the RSPB investigators say they were acting on intelligence, the defence had asked for that intelligence material that led the RSPB to installing the surveillance equipment.
Mr Rouse continued, saying the defence’s principal concern about the disclosure of footage was the extent of “data breaches for the defendant and others recorded when they should not have been recorded” because “the RSPB were trespassing and the capture of data was unlawful“.
Mr Rouse also raised concerns about the police’s Section 19 (WCA) search of the moor. He asked how the police knew where to search, was the RSPB involved in that search, and if so, the identities of any RSPB staff involved should be disclosed. DJ Lower and Mr Beaumont agreed.
DJ Lower dismissed Mr Rouse’s concerns over privacy because any images captured by the RSPB could be “pixellated to protect the identity of members of the public“.
He suggested the discussion about disclosure should be continued between the defence and the prosecution, and that disclosure of all relevant evidence should take place within 28 days, and at the latest by 4pm on 7th October 2025.
DJ Lower set a two-day trial date (29th-30th January 2026, pending witness availability) at York Magistrates’ Court and said the case would be reserved for him.
He granted Mr Dingwall unconditional bail and asked his representative to ensure Mr Dingwall understood the consequences of non-attendance at court on 29 January 2026.
NB: Because criminal legal proceedings are live, the comment facility has been switched off.
Press release from Police Scotland (24 September 2025):
BIRD OF PREY FOUND TO BE POISONED IN PERTH & KINROSS AREA
Enquiries into the death of red kite are ongoing.
On 22 June, 2025 a dead red kite was found near to its nest to the north west of Braco, in the Perth and Kinross area.
Subsequent post mortem examination and toxicology testing have shown that the bird had ingested toxic levels of rodenticide.
The red kite was also found to have ingested the banned substance aldicarb. Aldicarb has been illegal in the UK since 2007 and no products containing this substance are approved for use in the UK.
Birds of prey, like all wild birds in Scotland, are protected under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981, and it is an offence to intentionally or recklessly kill or injure them.
Wildlife Crime Coordinator, Detective Sergeant David Lynn, said: “This red kite has been poisoned resulting in a very painful and distressing death. Legal rodenticides must be used with extreme caution to avoid the poisoning of non-target species or you may be liable to prosecution. The use of Aldicarb is an illegal and reckless act as this substance can be fatal for both animals and humans.
“Our investigation into this incident is continuing and we will pursue anyone who targets Scotland’s birds of prey. I would encourage anyone with any information in relation to this incident to contact us.
“We ask anyone using the area to be vigilant if they find anything suspicious, don’t touch it, but do take photos and report to Police Scotland immediately on 101.”
Anyone with information is asked to call Police Scotland on 101 quoting incident number 1176 of 23 September, 2025.
Raptor Persecution UK 