Category: News

Further to last week’s news that Scottish gamekeeper Rory Parker pleaded guilty to committing raptor persecution crime on a grouse moor on Moy Estate in September 2021 (see here), I’ve been looking to see how the game-shooting industry has responded to this conviction.

You’ll recall that this is the game-shooting industry whose organisations routinely state they have a ‘zero tolerance’ policy towards raptor persecution, in which case you’d think they’d be quick to condemn this latest crime and call on their members and the wider shooting public to distance themselves from Moy Estate, and especially as the estate is already serving a three-year General Licence restriction imposed in 2022 after Police Scotland found further evidence of wildlife crime (see here), namely a poisoned red kite and ‘incidents in relation to trapping offences’.

Four days on from Parker’s conviction, I haven’t found any statements of condemnation on the websites of the Scottish Gamekeepers Association, BASC, or the Countryside Alliance.

Their collective silence says a lot, I think. In my opinion it’s related to an ongoing, industry-wide damage limitation exercise as the Wildlife Management & Muirburn (Scotland) Bill begins its passage through the Scottish Parliament. Drawing attention to criminal activity on grouse moors at a time when MSPs are considering the extent of proposed regulation in the form of a grouse-shooting licence is not in their interests, although I’d argue that if they were as resolute about stamping out raptor persecution crimes as they claim to be, they should have been at the forefront of leading the condemnation.

The only game-shooting organisation that has responded to the news of Parker’s conviction is landowners’ lobby group, Scottish Land & Estates (SLE).

I’ve already written about a media quote attributed to grouse moor owner Dee Ward, who’s also Vice Chair (Policy) at SLE, who seemed keen to distance Parker’s crime from grouse moor management (see here), and this was repeated in a statement that SLE published on its website on the day of Parker’s conviction.

Credit to SLE for not shying away from the news, but its manipulation of the narrative is all too obvious:

I’m not sure what the ‘progress’ is to which Dee refers. I haven’t seen any evidence of ‘the sector driving down raptor crime in recent years‘. What I have seen is an increasing number of shooting estates having General Licence restrictions imposed after Police Scotland has confirmed evidence of continued raptor persecution crimes (there are currently six GL restrictions in place – Leadhills Estate (here), Lochan Estate (here), Leadhills Estate [again] (here), Invercauld Estate (here), Moy Estate (here) and Millden Estate (here)).

The Scottish Government doesn’t appear to have seen the evidence, either, given the Environment Minister’s statement in 2020 when she announced that there could be no further delay to the introduction of a grouse moor licensing scheme because:

“…despite our many attempts to address this issue, every year birds of prey continue to be killed or disappear in suspicious circumstances on or around grouse moors“.

Time will tell if SLE sticks with Dee’s claim that, “We will continue to do all that we can to prevent, detect and condemn anyone who thinks this kind of abhorrent behaviour is acceptable“.

Will that include boycotting the Highland Game Fair, held each year on the Moy Estate? This is an event that SLE, and the other shooting organisations, routinely attend, with apparently total disregard for sanctions imposed on the estate for wildlife crime (see here).

It’s actions, not mere words, that will determine whether the industry’s ‘zero tolerance’ policy is seen as credible, and as far as I’m concerned, the industry’s actions haven’t come close.

On Friday (31st March 2023), gamekeeper Rory Parker, 24, of Drumbain Cottage, Tomatin, pleaded guilty to shooting and killing a sparrowhawk on 16th September 2021 whilst employed on Moy Estate (see here).

Parker was filmed by an RSPB Investigator as the (at the time 22-year-old) gamekeeper hid in a bush on the grouse moor, a few feet away from a large plastic owl that had been placed on a fencepost. It’s well-known that raptors will be drawn to an owl decoy and will try to mob / attack it. If someone sits quietly nearby with a gun they’ll have a good chance at shooting and killing the raptor whilst it’s distracted by the owl.

We’ve seen this technique deployed on grouse moors many times before, sometimes with plastic decoys, sometimes with live eagle owls (e.g. see here, here, here, here, here, here).

It looks like that’s what happened that September day in 2021. Here’s a screen grab from the RSPB’s video showing the position of Parker and the decoy owl:

If you haven’t yet seen the full video, there’s a copy of it embedded in this tweet below. I’d encourage you to watch it, and take note of Parker’s body language when he goes over to the sparrowhawk he’s just shot, as it’s flapping around, wounded, on the ground. He’s calm and proficient as he stamps his foot/knee on the bird to crush it, before casually picking it up and retuning to his hiding place in the bush. It appears to be quite routine and he does not look at all disturbed at having just committed a serious wildlife crime.

In court, Parker was defended by Mark Moir KC. The KC stands for King’s Counsel and denotes an experienced, high-ranking lawyer considered to be of exceptional ability. I wonder who paid for his services? In mitigation for Parker’s offending, Mr Moir KC reportedly told Sheriff Sara Matheson that his client had been in his job since he left school.

“He is deeply shameful of what he has done. He has brought the estate into disrepute and has now resigned.

“His firearms certificate is likely to be revoked as a result of this conviction. He should have been shooting pigeons and crows that day. Feral pigeons are a problem on the estate.

“However, the sparrowhawk flew over and there was a rush of blood. He says it was a stupid thing to do.”

After watching the video, it didn’t look like ‘a rush of blood‘ to me. It looked entirely premeditated.

Apparently the RSPB video wasn’t shown in open court but I’m not sure whether Sheriff Matheson had an opportunity to see it behind closed doors. I suspect she didn’t, given the sentence she handed down to Parker – a pathetic £1,575 fine and three months in which to pay it.

This should have been a test case of the new Animals & Wildlife (Penalties, Protections & Powers) (Scotland) Act 2020; legislation that was introduced to increase the penalties available for certain wildlife crimes, including those under Section 1(1)(a) of the Wildlife & Countryside Act – ‘Intentionally, or recklessly, killing, injuring, or taking a wild bird‘. Parker committed his offence after the enactment of this new legislation.

Prior to the new legislation, the maximum penalty available for the type of offence Parker committed was up to six months imprisonment and/or a fine of up to £5,000.

The new legislation increased the maximum penalty available (on summary conviction, as in Parker’s case) to a maximum of 12 months imprisonment and/or a fine of up to £40,000.

So why was Rory Parker only given a £1,575 fine??*

The penalty increases in the new Act were introduced by the Scottish Government because the previous penalties were not considered sufficient to recognise the seriousness of wildlife crime(s) [and animal cruelty offences].

This view was supported by an independent review by Professor Poustie, published in 2015, which concluded that the then maximum penalties available to the courts may not have been serving as a sufficient deterrent to would-be offenders, nor reflecting the seriousness of the crime(s).

The Poustie Review was first commissioned in 2013 by then Environment Minister Paul Wheelhouse, and as part of a series of measures aimed at tackling the continued persecution of birds of prey (see here). It was his response to growing levels of public concern and a lack of confidence in the judiciary to deal with raptor-killing criminals. Criticisms of the system had often centred around perceived corruption, vested-interests and biased Sheriffs, and we had come to expect unduly lenient and inconsistent sentencing in most cases (e.g. see here).

The new legislation was supposed to address those concerns with a significant increase in the severity of penalties available for courts to hand down to offenders.

I don’t see any evidence of that in the sentencing of raptor-killing gamekeeper Rory Parker.

*UPDATE: Someone who was in court on Friday has just been in touch to provide further insight into sentencing. They told me:

‘When the defence KC was summing up he repeatedly suggested to the sheriff what penalty might be most appropriate, i.e. a fine and maybe a community payback order. He also told her Mr Parker had savings of £2,000. It was therefore no surprise at all she then issued a £1,800 fine (discounted to £1,500 because he wasn’t considered an adult when he committed the crime. Since when is a 22 year old not an adult?!!!) In my opinion, therefore, the Sheriff was basically spoon-fed the sentence by the KC‘.

Not for the first time, a gamekeeper has been convicted for raptor persecution crime on Moy Estate, a notorious grouse- shooting estate in Scotland.

The RSPB has issued the following press statement:

GAMEKEEPER PLEADS GUILTY TO SHOOTING SPARROWHAWK ON SCOTTISH GROUSE MOOR

• Gamekeeper caught by footage taken by RSPB Scotland Investigations team
• Fined £1500
• The conservation charity is calling for urgent implementation of the Wildlife Management and Muirburn Bill which will bring in grouse moor licensing, aimed at stopping crimes against birds of prey

At Inverness Sheriff’s Court today (31 March 2023), Rory Parker (24), pleaded guilty to shooting a Sparrowhawk whilst employed as a gamekeeper on the Moy Estate, Inverness.

He is the 56^th gamekeeper to be convicted of raptor persecution offences in Scotland since 1990.

The conviction was secured after the incident was directly filmed by RSPB Scotland Investigations staff on 16 September 2021. Footage shows the bird circling overhead, before a gun is raised by the defendant and then the bird is shot out of the sky, before finally being collected by the gamekeeper. A plastic ‘decoy’ owl can be seen close to the gamekeepers position and is most likely being used as a lure to attract live birds of prey to be shot.

A search led by Police Scotland of the suspects address and land on the Moy Estate took place on 19 September 2021 when he was arrested and interviewed.

All birds of prey are protected under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 and killing them is against the law, punishable by an unlimited fine and/or jail.

Ian Thomson, Head of Investigations for RSPB Scotland, said: “This conviction was the end result of exemplary partnership working between Police Scotland, RSPB Scotland, the Wildlife DNA Forensics team at Science and Advice for Scottish Agriculture and the Wildlife & Environmental Crime Unit of COPFS.

“It is clear, however, with the shooting of a red kite on another Highland grouse moor earlier this week [Ed: see here], and ongoing investigations into incidents on other estates, that current sanctions appear to be no deterrent to criminal activity by employees of the grouse shooting industry, with their onslaught against protected birds of prey continuing unabated”.

Ian added: “We hope that the Scottish Parliament expedites the passage of laws in the Wildlife Management and Muirburn Bill introducing proper regulation of that industry, where the right to shoot grouse is dependent on operating within the law”.

Nationally, the RSPB’s recently published Birdcrime report for 2021 found that over two-thirds of confirmed raptor persecution incidents were in relation to land managed for gamebird shooting.

ENDS

There’s a lot to say about this conviction, and this estate, and it will probably take several blogs to get through it all.

For those who don’t know, Moy Estate is already serving a three-year general licence restriction (June 2022-2025) after Police Scotland provided the licensing authority (NatureScot) with evidence of wildlife crime against birds of prey on the estate, notably the discovery of a poisoned red kite in 2020 and ‘incidents in relation to trapping offences’. I wrote a blog about it at the time (see here) which also includes details of the long and sorry history of raptor persecution uncovered on this estate over the last decade.

And they’re still at it.

More on today’s conviction shortly.

UPDATE 31st March 2023: Moy gamekeeper convicted – cue damage limitation exercise by grouse shooting industry (here)

UPDATE 1st April 2023: The sentencing of raptor-killing Moy Estate gamekeeper Rory Parker (here)

UPDATE 4th April 2023: Game-shooting industry’s response to the conviction of Moy Estate gamekeeper Rory Parker (here)