A Leamington Spa farmer who committed a number of animal health offences has been handed a 16 week prison sentence, suspended for 12 months and banned from keeping animals.
A Leamington Spa farmer who committed a number of animal health offences including causing unnecessary suffering to a ewe that had to be euthanised has been handed a 16 week prison sentence, suspended for 12 months and banned from keeping animals. The prosecution was brought by Warwickshire County Council Trading Standards.
Mr Ewan David Wells (age 64) of Main St. Hunningham, Leamington Spa had already pleaded guilty to three Animal Health offences in December 2022 and appeared at Coventry Magistrates Court on 29th June 2023 for sentencing.
The offences spanned a period between 1st March 2019 and 1st March 2022 and were discovered following visits to the farm by Trading Standards Animal Health Officers and APHA* Veterinary Inspectors.
One offence related to causing unnecessary suffering to a ewe and the other two to failing to take such steps as were reasonable in all the circumstances to ensure that the needs of animals for which he was responsible were met to the extent required by good practice.
The court heard that there was a heavy accumulation of muck on the farm, three feet deep in some areas, which would make it difficult for animals, including young calves to walk. In some places muck had reached the same height of the rims of water troughs leading to constant contamination of the water within.
Old, rotten hay and silage had been left at the bottom of a feed ring from which animals were seen eating and in some areas silage and fodder beets were fed from the floor where they were contaminated with faeces. A shed containing around 200 ewes and some new born lambs had insufficient numbers of water buckets or other water provisions.
Cattle buildings were in poor repair and cattle had access to areas of the farm that had barbed wire on the floor and piles of scrap metal.
Mr Wells’ farm was inspected after he had been prosecuted in 2020 for causing unnecessary suffering to a cow. When problems were found, the tenant farmer was given an opportunity to put things right but failed to do so.
Warwickshire County Councillor Andy Crump, Portfolio Holder for Community Safety said:
“Warwickshire has a large farming community and our Trading Standards Animal Health Team work with them to ensure that livestock are healthy and cared for and the risk of disease is reduced as much as possible.”
“When problems are found, the advice of Animal Health Officers and vets is usually heeded and issues are rectified quickly, but unfortunately in this case, despite Mr Wells having received considerable guidance, he failed to follow it, leaving us with little option but to take court action.”
In mitigation, Mr Stephen Cadwaladr, representing Mr Wells stated that his client had operated a small farm for all of his working life and was not a wealthy man. Mr Wells farmed alone, days on the farm were long and the work arduous and Mr Wells had reluctantly accepted that he could no longer perform physical tasks as well as he once could. Further, he maintained that Mr Wells’ failure to meet best practice was for these and associated reasons as opposed to intention or idleness.
At Coventry Magistrates’ Court on Wednesday 7th December 2022, Mr Ewan David Wells (aged 64) of Main Street, Hunningham, Leamington Spa pleaded guilty to three offences under the Animal Welfare Act 2006.
On Thursday 29th June 2023 (also at Coventry Magistrates Court), pursuant to s34 of the Animal Welfare Act 2006 Mr Wells was disqualified from the following:
1. Owning animals of all kinds except domestic dogs or cats;
2. Keeping animals of all kinds except domestic dogs or cats;
3. Participating in the keeping of animals of all kinds except domestic dogs or cats;
4. Being party to an arrangement under which he is entitled to control or influence the way in which animals of all kinds are kept except domestic dogs or cats.
Mr Wells was also handed a 16 week custodial sentence suspended for a period of 12 months, given a 15 day rehabilitation requirement (a requirement that the defendant participates in activity to reduce the prospect of reoffending) and ordered to pay a contribution of £6000 towards prosecution costs and a £122 victim surcharge.
Mr Wells is not prevented from working with animals in the employment of another.
The disqualification order is suspended for a period of five weeks, until 3rd August 2023, in order to allow Mr Wells to make alternative arrangements for the animals on his farm.
Mr Wells may not seek to apply to terminate the disqualification order until 28th June 2028.