Peeblesshire News | News | Case against agricultural farmer collapses

Thursday, 4th December, 2008

Published: Friday, 29th August, 2008 12:30

Case against agricultural farmer collapses

By David Knox

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A GOVERNMENT agricultural officer accused of starving 50 lambs to death has walked free from court.

Only months after fresh legislation to protect animals was introduced by Andrew Struthers’ employers at Holyrood his farm near West Linton was raided.

Concerned neighbours of Deanfoot Farm tipped off the Scottish Society for the Protection of Animals last January after noticing dead sheep scattered around the fields.

Senior SSPCA inspector Ross Wilkie visited the farm and saw several carcasses as well as other lambs in distress.

But he, along with his boss Paul Anderson, failed to obtain a search warrant two days later on January 19 when they entered the fields.

At the opening day of the trial Chief Inspector Anderson told the court: “I believed we were allowed to enter the land – these sheep required attention.”

But this week the case against the 48-year-old government worker collapsed when Sheriff John Horsburgh ruled that the officer’s evidence wouldn’t be allowed.

The trial began earlier this month at Peebles Sheriff Court but was adjourned for the ruling to be made on the lawfulness of evidence gathering by the SSPCA.

The Sheriff this week concluded: “It was clear to me that they did not have an adequate knowledge of the various powers, of when a warrant was required, and of the circumstances in which they could act without one.

“The steps they took were accordingly contrary to the law, and the evidence gathered was irregularly recovered.”

During the search of the fields at Deanfoot Farm dozens of dead lambs were found.

And others had to be destroyed by a veterinary officer.

But during the rescue mission they also took photographs of the carcasses and empty feeding troughs, as well as mapping out where they found each dead sheep and taking three for post mortems.

Mr Struthers was charged under the Animal Health and Welfare (Scotland) Act 2006 with causing the unnecessary suffering to a flock of over 400 eight-month-old lambs, leading to the deaths of 52, through neglect between October, 2006 and January, 2007.

The Deanfoot Farm case was amongst the first to ever come to trial.

And following this week’s collapse, Procurator Fiscal Vikki Welton said: “Our office will liaise closely with the Scottish Society for the Protection of Cruelty to Animals to see how the legislation should be interpreted.

“This is a bit of a test case in many ways. We accept the Sheriff’s ruling and won’t be appealing his decision.”

The SSPCA claim that a shake-up in the legal system is required to make prosecutions easier.

And they believe their officers acted within the law at Deanfoot Farm.

Spokeswoman Doreen Graham told us: “One of the main premises of the Animal Health and Welfare (Scotland) Act 2006 was to make the legislation more straightforward, therefore enabling Reporting Agencies to bring animal cruelty cases to Court more swiftly. This fundamental principle would now appear to be at risk.

“The defence lawyer placed great emphasis on the fact that he believed our Inspectors could have obtained a Warrant within the hour. In our most recent experience, it took four days for a Warrant to be granted.

“The incident occurred shortly after the new animal welfare legislation became law in Scotland. Our Inspectors' interpretation of the Act had already been discussed with the Crown Office and the Society was of the opinion that a warrant was not needed to gather evidence in this instance.

“Our Officers are very concerned that so many animals suffered and died or were in such a poor state, they needed to be humanely destroyed on site by the Ministry vet we asked to attend.

“The Scottish SPCA now expects the Crown Office to advise us on what has changed in our interpretation of the Act as we still maintain our Officers acted correctly.

“Given the level of suffering, the lack of daylight at that time of year and the risk of evidence being lost due to bad weather conditions and scavenging, we still believe the correct actions were taken.”

Mr Struther’s wasn’t in Peebles Sheriff Court today to hear the sheriff’s ruling.

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