GAME KEEPERS GETTING CAUGHT AND MAGISTRATES’ POWERS TO SENTENCE.

 

INVESTIGATIONS CONTINUE AND SOME GO TO A LAW COURT

“Sentencing Stroud, Magistrates said that he was lucky to escape jail today.”

My comment is that gamekeepers are unlucky to be caught and bloody lucky not to go away. I know prisons cost money and we have too many inmates which results in overcrowding. I suppose another drum to bang! In the scale of things I can understand why he was not imprisoned. There are more serious crimes. We can read about them everyday, unfortunately.

And so the answer has to lie elsewhere and in the way we manage our - or more significantly ‘their’ land - until we gain more access and have the freedom to be there.

THIS IS ANOTHER POST FROM RAPTOR PERSECUTION UK

The court heard from the defence that Stroud was under pressure to produce game birds for the shoot after two poor years, that he had taken no pleasure in killing the buzzards and that he should have been informed that the law had changed around pheasant releases.

This is one of many incidents of raptor persecution identified on lowland pheasant and partridge shoots, which the RSPB says is an area of increasing concern. There is also evidence that large-scale releases of pheasant and partridge for shooting is having a detrimental impact on native wildlife.

The RSPB Investigations team conducted lengthy enquiries on an area of land managed by Stroud for pheasant shooting at Fengate Farm in Weeting, within the Breckland SPA. Following a number of visits, on 19 August 2021 they discovered a pheasant carcass – later found to contain the banned toxic chemical strychnine. The use of a poison bait such as a pheasant, laced with pesticides, is one of the most common methods of illegally killing birds of prey.

A subsequent search with Norfolk Police and partners uncovered further poison baits plus shot and poisoned raptors. Stroud’s phone also contained the photo of a goshawk and several buzzards which he admitted to shooting. They also found the deadly banned poison strychnine and phostoxin, a dangerous fumigant which was stored improperly.

(There is more on their post)