Gamekeeper in court over poison charges
A GAMEKEEPER and a land agent are facing trial after a raid by Royal Society for the Protection of Birds investigators and North Yorkshire Police on a remote Yorkshire Dales farm uncovered lethal poisons.
Gamekeeper James Freeman, of Moor House Farm, Lofthouse, Nidderdale and agent Simon Clowes, of Lawkland Green House, Lawkland, Austwick, near Settle, appeared before magistrates at Harrogate on Monday to answer a total of 13 charges.
They heard prosecutor David Tucker argue that the allegations were so serious, involving poisons which were potentially lethal and which could have led to an accident involving multiple deaths that they should go before a crown court judge.
Freeman, 56, faces nine charges and did not enter pleas to any of them. Four claim that at his farm on May 22 last year he stored pesticides, with active ingredients including sodium cyanide and aluminium phosphide without approval while a fifth alleges use of a sodium cyanide-based pesticide during 2006.
He is facing two charges of storing pesticides – involving both sodium cyanide and aluminium phosphide – without taking all reasonable precautions to protect the health of people and creatures, by keeping it in a glass jar in an unlocked store which was not sufficiently fire resistant.
An eighth charge claims Freeman had in his possession strychnine which had not been authorised or registered while the ninth count alleges possession of two syringes and a quantity of alphachloralose which were capable of being used to commit offences contrary to the 1981 Wildlife and Countryside Act.
Clowes, also 56, entered not guilty pleas to four charges, three of permitting Freeman to store pesticides without the required approval and one of permitting him to store a pesticide in an unsafe place, an unlocked storeroom in a dwelling, and failing to take all reasonable precautions to protect the health of people and wildlife.
Court chairman Michael Jefferies ordered both men to be tried before a judge and jury and bailed them until April 3 when the case is expected to be sent to York Crown Court.
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Thursday 24 May 2012
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