The trial of (now former) Stody Estate gamekeeper, Allen Charles Lambert, 65, is due to take place today at Norwich Magistrates Court.
Lambert is facing a series of charges for offences alleged to have taken place 18 months ago in April 2013.
Background to this case here.
UPDATE 18.15HRS: CONVICTED! Details here.
Criminal proceedings continued on Wednesday with hearing #10 in the case against Scottish gamekeeper George Mutch, of Kildrummy Estate, Aberdeenshire.
Mutch is pleading not guilty to a suite a charges relating to offences that are alleged to have taken place over two years ago, in August 2012. The charges 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.
This case has dragged on and on and on (see here for background) and looks set to drag on even further. Yet another intermediate diet has now been set for 15th October…
A new trial date has been set in the case against (now former) Stody Estate gamekeeper, Allen Lambert.
At a previous court hearing in December 2013, Lambert, 64, pleaded guilty to storing Mevinphos and Aldicarb pesticides at the Stody Estate in north Norfolk on or about 4th April 2013, as well as storing them without reasonable precautions.
He also admitted a charge of failing to comply with a firearms certificate by poor storage of a .22 Mauser.
He denied further charges including intentionally killing 14 buzzards, a sparrowhawk and a tawny owl between April 1-4 2013, as well as a charge of keeping nine dead buzzards on 4th April 2013.
His trial was previously due to begin in May 2014 but it was adjourned. The new trial date is 1st October 2014.
For the second consecutive year, a young white-tailed eagle has successfully fledged from a nest in east Scotland.
His sibling, who hatched in 2013, un-mysteriously ‘disappeared’ earlier this year in a notorious raptor persecution blackspot in the Cairngorms National Park (see here and here). He was the first sea eagle to fledge in east Scotland in over 200 years but he didn’t even survive to see his first birthday. His satellite transmitter went silent after he’d visited a driven grouse moor where previously a head gamekeeper had been convicted of poisoning offences (2006), a poisoned golden eagle had been found in 2011 (no prosecution), a poisoned buzzard had been found in 2011 (no prosecution), poisoned bait had been discovered in 2011 (no prosecution) and a short-eared owl had been found in 2011 that had been shot and shoved underneath a rock (no prosecution). The police raided the estate in April this year but found no trace of the eagle.
He might not have been the first sea eagle to fledge in Scotland in over 200 years if another east Scotland pair had not had their nest tree felled by someone with a chainsaw (see here – no prosecution).
The BBC is running an article on this year’s fledgling (see here) and includes a telling remark from RSPB Scotland saying they hoped the young bird would avoid areas where birds of prey have been poisoned or trapped. In other words, steer clear of driven grouse moors.
He’s got at least five years in which to run the gauntlet before he becomes mature enough to breed – we don’t rate his chances much.
Go west, kid, go west.
Mark Stevens, a self-employed gamekeeper who worked on Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Sydmonton Court Estate in Hampshire, has been convicted of setting two illegal traps and has been fined £700 with £650 court costs and a £50 victim surcharge.
Stevens, 42, admitted setting the two pole traps at a pheasant release pen in August last year but claimed he was targeting a grey squirrel that had been eating the pheasants’ food. The traps, which were not set on Lloyd Webber’s estate but on land at nearby Echinnswell, were discovered after a member of the public found a tawny owl hanging upside down with its leg caught in one of the traps. Its leg injuries were so severe it had to be euthanised by a vet.
According to Stevens’ solicitor, the setting of the traps was ‘accidental’.
Well done to the RSPB Investigations Team, Hampshire Constabulary and the Crown Prosecution Service for securing a conviction.
Pole-trapping has been illegal for over 100 years. Stevens is the latest of a number of gamekeepers recently convicted for this barbaric practice (e.g. see here and here). Unsurprisingly, all of them have claimed the traps were targeting squirrels and not birds of prey (as if that makes a difference).
RSPB Investigations video here (WARNING: GRAPHIC CONTENT)
RSPB Investigations blog here
News story in Daily Mail here
News story on BBC here
A Scottish gamekeeper is facing trial over allegations that he bludgeoned and then repeatedly stamped on a buzzard.
William Dick, 24, of Whitehill Cottages, Kirkmahoe, Dumfries, denied the charges at Dumfries Sheriff Court last week. The alleged offences reportedly took place in Sunnybrae, Dumfries in April this year.
Dick also denies two charges of breaching firearms regulations by leaving a bolt-action rifle and a Beretta self-loading shotgun loaded with five shells out-with a secure cabinet in his kitchen.
The case has been continued for one month to fix a trial date.
Thanks to the blog reader who sent us a local newspaper report about this hearing.
We’ll be following this case with interest.
UPDATE: 15th October 2014 here
UPDATE: 22nd October 2014 here
Derek Sanderson, a recently-retired head gamekeeper for a shooting syndicate on the Sledmere Estate in Yorkshire, was yesterday found guilty of storing five banned poisons in his house and in an unlocked outbuilding.
Those poisons were Carbofuran, Aldicarb, Mevinphos, Strychnine and Alphachloralose.
His sentence? A conditional discharge and a £15 victim surcharge!!!!!!!
The court apparently accepted that there was no causal link between the possession of these poisons and a dead buzzard found on Sledmere Estate in 2012 – confirmed as having been poisoned with Aldicarb.
Bob Elliot, Head of RSPB Investigations, has written an excellent blog about this, frankly, unbelievable case, here.
What sort of deterrent value is such a pathetic sentence?
Criminal proceedings continued today with hearing #9 in the case against Scottish gamekeeper George Mutch, of Kildrummy Estate, Aberdeenshire.
We understand that Mutch is pleading not guilty to a suite of charges for offences alleged to have taken place in August 2012. The charges come under Section 5 (subsection 1B) of the Wildlife & Countryside Act (relating to the use of a trap for the purpose of taking or killing wild birds) and Section 1 (subsection 1A) of the W&CA (relating to the killing, injuring or taking of wild birds).
Today’s hearing was supposed to be the last intermediate diet before the trial, which had been due to start on 28th May 2014. However, at today’s hearing, a further intermediate diet was announced (24th September 2014!!!) with a new trial date set for 22nd October 2014. Marvellous.
If the trial does go ahead in October 2014 (and it may not, depending on the outcome of the Sept intermediate diet), it will have been over two years since the alleged offences took place.
Here’s a chronology of the hearing dates in this case:
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)
Previous blogs on this case here, here, here, here, here, here and here.
Criminal proceedings continued today with another hearing in the case against gamekeeper George Mutch of Kildrummy Estate, Aberdeenshire.
We understand Mutch is pleading not guilty to a suite of charges for offences alleged to have taken place in August 2012. The charges come under Section 5 subsection 1B of the Wildlife & Countryside Act (relating to the use of a trap for the purpose of taking or killing wild birds) and Section 1 subsection 1A of the Wildlife & Countryside Act (relating to the killing, injuring or taking of wild birds).
This was the 8th hearing in this case. Previous hearings:
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).
We understand a trial date has been set for late May, although there is yet another hearing (#9) scheduled for 13th May.
Previous blogs on this case here, here, here, here, here and here.
The death toll in what we are calling the Ross-shire Massacre has risen again today with the discovery of another poisoned raptor. Today’s dead red kite is the 10th to be discovered in the last fortnight in a small area in Conon Bridge, along with four buzzards, bringing the total found to date to fourteen.
RSPB Scotland is offering a £5,000 reward for any information that leads to a successful conviction. Their money is probably quite safe.
Chairman of the Scottish Gamekeepers’ Association, Alex Hogg, has put out the following statement:
“The discovery of so many birds in one area is unprecedented and alarming“.
He’s either deliberately lying to make out that the mass killing of raptors in one area has never happened before or he has a very short memory:
In 2004, a gamekeeper on the Barns Estate in the Scottish Borders was convicted of poisoning 20 raptors (18 buzzards, 1 goshawk and 1 tawny owl). 25 dead raptors had been discovered but five were too badly decomposed to establish their cause of death (see here).
In 2013, gamekeeper Colin Burne was convicted of killing seven buzzards at the Whinfell Plantation, Penrith, Cumbria. A total of 12 dead birds had been found but five were too badly decomposed to establish their cause of death (see here).
This year, there is an on-going court case against a gamekeeper from the Stody Estate, Norfolk, after the discovery of 16 dead raptors (14 buzzards, 1 sparrowhawk and 1 tawny owl). Allen Lambert has admitted to storing two banned pesticides but he has denied killing the raptors. His trial begins in May (see here).
So far from this current incident being ‘unprecedented’, there are examples dating from 10 years ago right up to the present day of multiple dead raptors being found in a single incident – a telling indictment of just how little progress has been made in addressing this disgusting crime.
There’s also a statement on the SGA facebook page that includes this:
“Articles in the Telegraph and Herald this week indicated, through research, that there is little or no shooting interests in the area” [Conon Bridge, Ross-shire, where the latest atrocity is gradually being revealed].
That’s also inaccurate. There may not be a driven grouse moor in the immediate area but there certainly are shooting interests…
Photo of red kites at Gigrin Farm, Wales, by David Bowman.
Previous blogs on the Ross-shire Massacre here, here and here.
Raptor Persecution UK 