Category: News

Update on first vicarious liability prosecution

wane1Regular blog readers will know that we’ve been interested in the first prosecution of a landowner under the vicarious liability legislation for some time now….in fact ever since the legislation was enacted as part of the WANE Act on 1st January 2012 (see here for background info on what vicarious liability is and to what wildlife crime offences it can be applied).

We believe the first prosecution relates to the employers of gamekeeper and (now ex) SGA member Peter Bell, who was convicted in June 2013 of various poisoning offences that took place in December 2012 on the Glasserton & Physgill Estates. Those offences included laying a poisoned bait that subsequently killed a buzzard, and the possession of three banned poisons (Carbofuran, Strychnine and Alphachloralose) found in his tool shed and in his home (see here).

We’ve been asking whether there would be a vicarious liability prosecution against Bell’s employers for over a year, but each time we asked, various obstructions were put in our way (see here and here). However, in May this year, Environment Minister Paul Wheelhouse announced during a parliamentary debate on raptor persecution that vicarious liability proceedings had commenced (see here).

Since May, we’ve heard nothing at all, which we find surprising given the high level of public interest in how this new (well, nearly 3-year-old now)  and significant legislation will work.

We’ve been doing quite a lot of research since then and have finally discovered that this case is indeed in progress, and the next court hearing will take place next week. It won’t be an evidence-led hearing – it’s a special hearing that is designed to hear legal arguments. What happens next will depend on what the Sheriff decides at the end of the hearing. We’ll keep you posted.

We’ve also heard that there is a second vicarious liability case underway…..more on that in due course.

Case against gamekeeper George Mutch: part 10

Criminal proceedings continued yesterday with hearing #11 in the case against Scottish gamekeeper George Mutch of Kildrummy Estate, Aberdeenshire.

Mutch is pleading not guilty to a suite of charges relating to offences that are alleged to have taken place more than two years ago in August 2012. We believe these relate to the illegal use of a trap for the purpose of taking or killing wild birds (goshawk and buzzard) and to the killing, injuring or taking of wild birds (goshawk and buzzard).

Yesterday’s hearing was another intermediate diet and guess what? Yet another intermediate diet has been set for 21st October 2014.

Here’s the chronology of events so far:

August 2012: alleged offences took place

11th September 2013: case opened

2nd October 2013: hearing #2

30th October 2013: hearing #3

27th November 2013: hearing #4

17th December 2013: hearing #5

17th March 2014: hearing #6

2nd April 2014: hearing #7

16th April 2014: hearing #8

13th May 2014: hearing #9

24th September 2014: hearing #10

15th October 2014: hearing #11

21st October 2014: hearing #12 due

Case against Scottish gamekeeper William Dick: part 2

Criminal proceedings in the case against Scottish gamekeeper William Dick continued yesterday at Dumfries Sheriff Court.

It has been reported that Mr Dick, 24, is accused of bludgeoning and then repeatedly stamping on a buzzard. The alleged offences are reported to have taken place in Sunnybrae, Dumfries, in April 2014. Mr Dick denied the allegations at an earlier hearing (see here).

Yesterday the case was continued for a notional diet on 21st October 2014. A notional diet is basically a hearing for legal arguments. What happens next is subject to what the Sheriff decides at the notional diet; a trial may or may not follow at a later date.

Highland red kite shot in the head

According to a local journalist, a dead red kite was found on a railway line in Inverness-shire in early July.

It was collected and sent for a post-mortem, which revealed it had been shot in the head.

We don’t know whether the kite was shot at another location and then dumped on a railway line to disguise its cause of death as an accidental collision with a train, or whether it was actually shot on or close to the railway line. Either way, it was illegally killed.

Needless to say, more than three months later and it would appear that Police Scotland haven’t issued any press statement or appealed for information.

Why not?

SSPCA consultation responses – where are they?

sspca logoIn March this year, the Scottish Government finally launched the long-awaited (and long overdue….by three years) public consultation on whether the investigatory powers of the SSPCA should be increased to allow them to formally investigate more types of wildlife crime than their current remit (see here).

The consultation opened in March and closed on 1st September. We’re not expecting to hear the Government’s decision until later this autumn/winter.

However, their official consultation document included the following statement:

Next steps in the process

Where respondents have given permission for their response to be made public and after we have checked that they contain no potentially defamatory material, responses will be made available to the public on the Scottish Government website and in the Scottish Government library by 11th October 2014.

Today is 14th October 2014. We’ve looked for the responses on the Government’s website but we can’t seem to find them. Has anyone else found them?

We’ve seen the odd response published here and there (e.g. from the Scottish Gamekeepers’ Association, from OneKind, from Scottish Land & Estates, from the Law Society of Scotland, and from the former Head of the National Wildlife Crime Unit), but we’ve yet to see the full set of formal responses.

Where are they? We’d really like to see them…..

Rural Payments Agency ‘to consider action’ against Stody Estate

Five days ago we blogged about the millions of pounds of farming subsidies that have been given to Stody Estate over the last few years (see here). For new readers, Stody Estate was in the news last week because their (now former) gamekeeper, Allen Lambert, was found guilty of poisoning 11 raptors (10 buzzards and 1 sparrowhawk) on the estate, as well as other related poison offences (see here and here).

While we wait to find out Lambert’s sentence (due 6th November), we encouraged blog readers to contact the Rural Payments Agency (RPA) to ask whether any action would be taken against Stody Estate as the conviction implied they were in breach of the terms and conditions of their subsidy-fest.

Well done to all those who took the time to contact the RPA – we know from our site stats that at least 40 of you did.

To the RPA’s credit, they have responded very quickly. We’ve seen a number of the responses – some of which have already been shared as comments on this blog, and others which were shared with us privately via email.

From the RPA responses that we’ve seen, it looks as though the RPA is going to take a closer look at Stody Estate. The most common response has been as follows:

“I can confirm that RPA will consider what action can be taken under the cross compliance rules in respect of the offences for which the gamekeeper was convicted“.

However, there was one RPA response that didn’t sound quite as promising:

“RPA can confirm there is no investigation ongoing“.

Hmm.

As some commentators have already suggested, it’s worth keeping hold of the reference number given at the end of each of the RPA responses so that we can follow up in a few months time to see what action, if any, the RPA has taken.

Lambert 9 bz

Six dead buzzards in Aberdeen: an update

Last week we blogged about the apparent discovery of ‘six dead buzzards’ that had been found in a field in Aberdeenshire (see here).

Almost a week later, and after “extensive inquiries” and an examination of the bodies by experts…..it turns out they weren’t six dead buzzards after all. They weren’t even raptors! (We don’t know what they actually were – their identity hasn’t been revealed).

For God’s sake. It’s reminiscent of the “six skinned badgers” story that emerged earlier this year. They turned out to be the remains of roe deer (see here).

Doesn’t inspire much confidence, does it?

STV news article here

UPDATE 10/10/14: According to the P&J, these carcasses were turkeys or chickens! You couldn’t make this up! See here.

Hen harrier Sid ‘disappears’ in North Yorkshire

sidSid was one of the successfully-fledged hen harriers at Langholm this year. He was satellite-tagged on 3rd July and his movements have been mapped and shared on the Making the Most of Moorlands blog all summer.

In late September Sid flew to North Yorkshire. His satellite tag stopped transmitting from an area of moorland near Hawes. The location has apparently been searched but there’s no sign of Sid or of his sat tag.

Nobody will be surprised by this news, nor the proximity of his last signal to driven grouse moors. Cue outpourings of ‘sadness’ from the usual suspects and the long list of possible explanations for his ‘disappearance’ apart from the most probable one.

The petition to ban driven grouse shooting has reached 18,000 signatures. It’s time it had some more – sign here, for Sid.

Photo of Sid, from the Making the Most of Moorlands blog.

RSPB publish last known positions of hen harriers Sky & Hope

Last month, we learned that two of this year’s English hen harrier chicks, Sky & Hope, had ‘disappeared’ in suspicious circumstances, just a few weeks after fledging (see here).

The RSPB has now published their last known locations in Bowland, Lancashire, accompanied by a plea for information about what happened to these two young harriers.

How refreshing to see the actual locations mapped out and made available in the public domain – Natural England, take note!

Here is the map.  The final satellite tag transmissions of Hope and Sky are somewhere inside these red circles. For further details of these sites and the dates of the last tag transmissions, please read the RSPB’s Skydancer blog here.

Sky & Hope buffer

 

Cairngorms National Park Authority wants ‘action’ against raptor persecution

Duncan BrydenThe Convenor of the Cairngorms National Park Authority (CPNA), Duncan Bryden, has written to the Environment Minister to tell him that continued incidents of raptor persecution and ‘disappearing birds’ in the eastern side of the Cairngorms National Park “threatens to undermine the reputation of the National Park as a high quality wildlife tourism destination“.

He has asked for the Minister to attend a meeting of stakeholders in the Eastern Cairngorms (including RSPB Scotland and, er, Scottish Land & Estates) to discuss ways to address this on-going issue.

That’ll be interesting, seeing as though SLE continue to deny the extent of the problem (e.g. see here) and only last year gave membership to the ranks of SLE to the North Glenbuchat Estate – a grouse moor in the National Park that has been at the centre of wildlife crime investigations for years, most recently following the ‘disappearance’ in April of the first fledged white-tailed eagle in eastern Scotland for 200 years – it’s final signal reportedly came from North Glenbuchat estate (see here). The eagle is presumed dead but it’s body has not been recovered, just like the bodies of three other young satellite tagged eagles that ‘disappeared’ in the area in recent years. The body of a fifth eagle was found on North Glenbuchat Estate in 2011 – it had been poisoned with Carbofuran. As had a poisoned buzzard, also found in 2011, as well as a poisoned bait. A dead short-eared owl was also found in 2011 – it had been shot and stuffed under a rock.

Good luck to the CNPA in trying to oust the raptor-killing criminals from the National Park and well done Duncan Bryden for taking a stand.

Download: CNPA letter to Paul Wheelhouse May2014

Download: Paul Wheelhouse response to CNPA

CNP map