Category: News

In October last year, a stolen Land Rover was packed with fuel cannisters, driven to the front gates of Chris Packham’s house just after midnight and set alight. The vehicle exploded and the subsequent inferno caused considerable damage to Chris’s property (see here). Two masked individuals were caught on security cameras and were seen to escape in a second vehicle.

Hampshire Constabulary has been investigating this arson attack and in December 2021 an appeal was issued asking the public to help identify an individual caught on CCTV at a petrol station:

The police investigation is ongoing and on Wednesday 16th March, Chris will join Detective Inspector Howard Broadribb on the BBC’s Crimewatch programme at 10am as new evidence is revealed.

I’ll add a link here for those who want to watch it later on BBC iPlayer. [Ed: click here]

If anyone has any information about this criminal attack please call Hampshire Constabulary on 101 and quote incident reference number 44210403698.

UPDATE 16th March 2022: Police describe arson attack at Chris Packham’s home as ‘absolutely terrifying’ & appeal for information (here)

Last month conservation campaign group Wild Justice started legal proceedings against DEFRA over changes that DEFRA had apparently slipped in to General Licence #42 in January, extending the definition of ‘livestock’ which meant permitting the killing of so-called ‘pest’ species to protect pheasants when they were classified as ‘livestock’ (see here and here).

Wild Justice nicknamed this Schrodinger’s pheasant, with a nod to Schrodinger’s cat, because the pheasant’s status seemed to be ‘livestock’ and ‘wildlife’ simultaneously, according to whatever seemed to suit the shooting industry at any given time:

Earlier this week, DEFRA wrote back to Wild Justice to acknowledge that the extension of the definition of ‘livestock’ in this case would not be not lawful and that the terms of General Licence #42 have now been amended to clarify the status of pheasants.

Tom Short, one of Wild Justice’s lawyers at Leigh Day, simplifies the arguments very well with this explanation:

When GL42 was published in January, it appeared that Defra had deliberately sought to extend the definition of “livestock” as set out in 27(1) Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 by way of footnote 7. This meant that certain Pheasants released from their pens by shooting estates would now be counted as “livestock” rather than wild birds. That matters because as “livestock”, GL42 authorisers user to kill or take Carrion Crows, Jackdaws, Magpies or Rooks to protect the Pheasants.

In particular, Wild Justice was concerned that GL42 went beyond the definition of “livestock” in the WCA 1981, to now include gamebirds “kept in an enclosure or which are free roaming but remain significantly dependent on the provision of food, water or shelter by a keeper for their survival”. The WCA 1981 definition by contrast only includes gamebirds which remain “kept” “for the provision or improvement of shooting”. On that definition, once a Pheasant is let out of the release pens ready for the shooting season, it is no longer kept for the provision of shooting and so its protection cannot be a lawful reason to kill or take Carrion Crows, Jackdaws, Magpies or Rooks under GL42.

Wild Justice asked Defra to justify the extension of the definition. In their response, Defra has agreed to revise the definition, has conceded that it is the WCA 1981 definition that applies and that they cannot extend that definition by including additional wording in the general licences. DEFRA also says that “The Secretary of State does not consider pheasants to be livestock within the meaning of the WCA 81 once they cease to be kept”.

Defra’s agreement to amend footnote 7 also clarifies that gamekeepers cannot claim that Pheasants they have released are “kept” simply by virtue of providing supplementary food “out into the environment”. Supplementary food does not make a wild Pheasant a kept Pheasant.  Defra says that “In principle, there is a significant and clear difference between the feeding of dependent kept birds and the provision of supplementary food in the environment”. We might doubt quite how clear that difference is, but certainly it is a reasonable argument (to be judged on the facts of each case) that a “dependent kept bird” would be one that is largely dependent on food in or by the pen.

Related to this, Defra has also confirmed that only shelter that is provided by a gamekeeper “by or within the release pen” is a factor in assessing whether a Pheasant is kept or wild. Any shelter that is provided further away does not bring a Pheasant back into a gamekeeper’s keeping.

Defra has also confirmed that lethal control is a method of last resort and alternatives must always be tried first.

Wild Justice challenged the expansion of the definition of “livestock” footnote 7 and the Secretary of State has conceded that the definition cannot be extended past what is set out in primary legislation. Any gamekeepers hoping to kill Carrion Crows, Jackdaws, Magpies or Rooks to protect Pheasants are only permitted to do so where those Pheasants are still “kept” and not yet wild birds, and only where they have explored non-lethal alternatives. No amount of spreading “supplementary food” or extra bits of shelter away from the release pen can make a wild Pheasant a kept Pheasant.

There’s a piece in today’s Guardian about this latest win for Wild Justice (here) and a Wild Justice blog (here).

Wild Justice has three co-directors (Mark Avery, Chris Packham, Ruth Tingay) who work unpaid as volunteers. Their work to get a better deal for wildlife relies entirely on donations so if you’d like to support their work please consider a donation here. If you’d like to hear more about their legal challenges and campaign work, please sign up for their free newsletter here.

Thank you.

Even though the pheasant-shooting season ended over a month ago, shot and dumped pheasants are still being discovered by shocked members of the public.

Many thanks to the blog reader who sent in this photo of shot & dumped pheasants, found last Monday chucked behind a hedge at the T-junction of Green Lane and Barnburgh Lane, just outside Goldthorpe, Barnsley, South Yorkshire.

So yet another dumping incident to add to the long list of those found in Cheshire, Scottish borders (here), Norfolk (here), Perthshire (here), Berkshire (here), North York Moors National Park (here) and some more in North York Moors National Park (here) and even more in North Yorkshire (here), Co. Derry (here), West Yorkshire (here), and again in West Yorkshire (here), N Wales (here), mid-Wales (here), Leicestershire (here), Lincolnshire (here), Somerset (here), Derbyshire’s Peak District National Park (here), Suffolk (here), Leicestershire again (here), Somerset again (here), Liverpool (here), even more in North Wales (here) even more in Wales, again (here), in Wiltshire (here) and in Angus (here).

I really hope Liam Stokes is paying attention to this. Liam is the Chief Executive of British Game Assurance (formerly British Game Alliance), the game-shooting industry’s version of a marketing board but not without its problems (e.g. see here).

Last month (Feb) Liam spoke at the BGA’s symposium, recorded here. After referring to the recent discussion in the House of Lords between Lord Newby and Lord Benyon (when Newby asked Benyon about shot gamebirds being dumped and Benyon claimed to have no knowledge of this happening – see here), here is what Liam Stokes had to say about shot & dumped gamebirds (starts at 4.24 min in the video link above):

“He [Lord Newby] then goes on to ask this question – ‘In many cases game birds are shot and not used for food’. Now, as Lord Benyon is going to respond here, the evidence for this is vanishingly thin, this is, I mean, this, this is something that goes round in rural circles all the time, you know, that this, this is happening. We don’t see the evidence for it. So please don’t think that I’m sharing this because I also think this is happening, this is, this is something that goes around rural rumour mills and the evidence does not appear“.

Such forthright denial might seem convincing if you’re new to this. But if you’ve been around a while you might remember Liam Stokes in his former job at the Countryside Alliance when he had to respond to press enquiries when evidence appeared of shot & dumped pheasants (e.g. see here and here).

It’s also worth pointing out that Liam’s denial at the recent symposium came just a few days after national press coverage (including by ITV news) of a gamekeeper filmed by undercover investigators from the League Against Cruel Sports flinging shot gamebirds into a mineshaft in North Wales (see here) leading to an ongoing investigation by the police, Natural Resources Wales and a local council authority.

Surely, as CEO of the game shooting industry’s own self-styled marketing board, Liam Stokes would have been well aware of this very clear evidence of gamebird dumping, and yet he was prepared to go on camera and deny there’s any evidence of this happening?!

Crikey, you’d think that the CEO of a marketing board, reliant on consumers’ trust, would do a bit better than this, wouldn’t you?

A High Court judge has this morning ruled that 19 separate articles, tweets and videos containing allegations about Chris Packham are defamatory at common law and that Chris’s lawsuit for libel damages against three defendants can proceed to trial.

[Chris, his partner Charlotte, and some of his legal team at the High Court in February 2022. Photo by Ruth Tingay]

The ruling relates to a preliminary ‘meanings’ hearing held at the Royal Courts of Justice on 15th February 2022. During that hearing, amongst other things, Mr Justice Johnson considered the ‘natural and ordinary’ meanings of the allegations made by the defendants in the 19 articles, tweets and videos and whether their allegations were written as ‘opinion’ or ‘fact’. If found to be ‘opinion’ that could provide a defence for the three defendants.

Today’s ruling comprehensively states that each of the ‘meanings’ are defamatory of the claimant [Chris Packham] at common law and that they all amount to statements of fact rather than expressions of opinion.

At the forthcoming trial the burden of proof will be on the defendants to provide a lawful defence for their defamatory statements.

Today’s judgement can be read here:

UPDATE 15.30hrs:

Press release from Chris’s solicitors at Leigh Day –

A series of nine articles in Country Squire magazine, two videos on YouTube and eight tweets about Chris Packham were defamatory, according to a judgment handed down today.

An initial trial of preliminary issues about the meaning of the articles, videos and tweets rejected the contention that all were expressing an opinion.

The defendants claimed that when they contended that Mr Packham misused his role as a BBC presenter to defraud the public into making charitable donations on the false pretext that tigers had been mistreated by a circus and rescued by a zoo, they were expressing an opinion. 

They relied on question marks, reference to the need for clarifications, an invitation to the reader to “make up your own mind” as part of their case.

However Mr Justice Johnson held that the meaning of each article is defamatory of Mr Packham at common law and amounts to a statement of fact. 

He rejected arguments that serious allegations of fraud were mitigated. References to the police and other investigating bodies “were not presented in a way to suggest that the reader should keep an open mind. They again reinforce the central theme of the publications that the claimant has perpetrated a fraud on the public”.

He said the parts of the publications that express opinions were ancillary to the defamatory meanings that the articles convey.

Following the determination of the meanings of the publications, it is expected that a substantive trial will be held towards the end of the year.

Mr Packham began proceedings following repeated allegations in Country Squire magazine that he defrauded the public into donating funds for the Wildheart Trust, where he is a trustee, by falsely claiming that it had rescued emotionally and physically broken tigers from European circuses.

The claims were independently investigated by the Fundraising Regulator and found to be unsupported [Ed: RPUK blog on that here], but the defendants refused to remove the articles, tweets and videos from the public domain and since the proceedings were issued, repeated the allegations. 

Following the judgment, Chris Packham said:

“Truth and love, and a love of truth are things we cherish. They give us the ability to proceed, to become better people. They give us a chance of making a better world. So we must protect them, sometimes at great  personal cost. And that is why I have no choice but pursue this course of litigation. In this case the three defendants have proactively sought to damage my reputation. There is a line in the sand and it’s been crossed and I aim to ensure that they and any others who seek to employ such methods cross back again. And stay there.”

Chris Packham is represented by Leigh Day partner Tessa Gregory and solicitor Carol Day, who said: 

“Our client is pleased the judge has recognised these very serious allegations are defamatory at common law. The burden of proof is now on the defendants to show a lawful defence to these claims in a substantive trial.”

ENDS

UPDATE: The trial is due to take place in May 2023.

Last autumn the RSPB launched an online reporting system for members of the public to document moorland fires (muirburn) to help build a picture of where heather moorland is being set alight as part of so-called grouse moor ‘management’ (see here).

In February 2022 the RSPB renewed its call for muirburn reports from the public with the aid of a free APP to make it a simple process (see here).

[Gamekeepers setting fire to a grouse moor in Aberdeenshire in February 2022]

The RSPB also provided this infographic analysing the reports it had received between October 2021 – January 2022, providing evidence that muirburn was taking place on peat, which is obviously of huge concern in this period of climate crisis. There was also evidence that burning was taking place in protected areas which is now illegal unless an individual licence has been granted:

The grouse shooting lobby was furious that the RSPB was asking people to report these fires (see here).

They’re going to be even more furious today because the RSPB has just published even more analysis of even more fires, showing that 82% of all reported fires on what is believed to be peatland (32 of 39 reports) were also in supposedly protected landscapes designated for conservation: Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSIs), Special Areas of Conservation (SACs), and Special Protection Areas (SPAs). Oops.

Today the RSPB in England has released another press release (see below) urging members of the public to continue to report moorland fires until the end of the burning season (April 15th). A similar request is expected from the RSPB Scotland team next week.

Press release from RSPB England (9th March 2022):

Public have reported 137 burns to the RSPB this season in England

• The RSPB’s new upland burning reporting app has documented over 137 reports of burning in our uplands from 1 October 2021 to 28 February 2022.
• More than 1 in 4 reported burns in England were on likely peat.
• Of the burns reported on likely peat, 4 out of 5 (or more than 80%) were in a protected area (Sites of Special Scientific Interest, Special Areas of Conservation or Special Protected Areas).
• The RSPB is calling on members of the public to continue to report incidents of burning in our uplands using their Survey 123 app before the end of the burning season on 15^th April.
• The data collected will help make the case for better protection of our globally important blanket bog and support the RSPB’s call for Governments across the UK to ban burning on peatland and to licence all moorland and grass burning to protect people, nature and our climate. 

This burning season, the RSPB launched their Burning Reporting App, allowing members of the public to simply and anonymously submit evidence of burning in our upland areas.

The burning season, which runs from October until April is undertaken across our moors, hillsides and valleys. The practice is used by gamekeepers and farmers to remove old heather and grass, with new growth preferred by grouse and sheep to eat.

In response to environmental concerns, DEFRA has taken steps to end rotational burning on peatland (>40cm deep), limiting where and when it can take place within Special Areas of Conservation and Protected Areas

However, burn reporting evidence collected by RSPB and our partners demonstrates that this legislation does not go far enough with burning still being recorded on peaty soils.

Dr Pat Thompson, Senior Policy Officer for RSPB UK said, ‘We have had a great response from the public to our app, with over 130 reports of burning it’s clear that people from across our upland communities are eager to help to do their part to protect these internationally significant landscapes.’  

‘It is clear from the reports we have received so far that burns are being conducted on our peatlands and in our protected areas.’

‘Our peatlands vital carbon stores and home to some of our most precious wildlife with their protection vital to tackling the climate crisis and in light of the latest IPCC report it is clear that we must take action to protect them.’

‘The evidence collected by our app demonstrates that the actions taken so far by government in Westminster to regulate burning does not go far enough. If we are to protect these internationally important landscapes and we must put a stop to burning on our peatlands and ensure that licencing is brought in for all heather and grass burning.’

Oriole Wagstaff, Casework Officer for RSPB UK said, ‘We cannot protect our uplands if we do not have a full picture of the land management undertaken throughout them. With many burns taking place in remote areas, we need the public to support us and report these burns.’  

‘Our new burning app is providing vital information on the extent and location of burning in the English uplands.  Information gathered to date shows that burning on peatlands is still happening, despite regulation intended to stop it on areas of deep peat.’

Burning can take place until the 15^th April in England. To anonymously report a burn and download the app (available on iOS and Android), members of the public can visit the RSPB Burning website. There they can find instructions on how to download the app, as well as information on how to spot a burn and to stay to safe when reporting when reporting a burn.

By downloading the app and reporting evidence of burning you can play a vital role in helping to show the UK Government that despite current legislation, burning on carbon-rich blanket bogs is still taking place across our uplands. Ending burning will be a key step in ensuring we can turn round the fate of this globally important habitat in the UK.

ENDS

UPDATE 24th March 2022: RSPB Scotland encouraging the public to continue to report upland fires this season (here)