Farmer fined for cruelty

A TELSCOMBE farmer has protested his innocence after being found guilty of causing unnecessary suffering to his animals.

The RSPCA prosecuted Timothy Armour, of Telscombe Stud Farm, Telscombe Village, after inspectors found emaciated sheep and under fed pigs on his land in July 2000.

RSPCA inspector Barbara Kvalheim said it was one of the worse cases of sheep neglect she had seen.

'The pigs were very thin and the sheep emaciated. It was terrible, extremely bad. The flock management was appalling.

Maggots had infested some sheep and were eating them alive, she added.

After a 12-day hearing Mr Armour was found guilty at Brighton Magistrates Court on Friday of 15 charges of causing unnecessary suffering. He was fined 1,500 and ordered to pay 14,000 costs.

But Mr Armour, 62, who defended himself in court, claimed the sheep were not his and had strayed on to his land from elsewhere.

He said: 'I am extremely disappointed with the verdict. Even though the sheep were considerably different in appearance to mine it was extremely difficult to prove that the animals were not mine unless the proper owner had the honour to own up to the court.

'This he found he could not do and I have had to suffer the consequences.

The trial, which was held at Brighton and Lewes Magistrates Courts, was originally scheduled for five days. But it overran to 12 days and was adjourned for a further 14 days when a magistrate was called away to preside over another case.

Mr Armour, who has farmed in Telscombe for 20 years, was angry at the distress caused to his wife Nina, 61, who was receiving treatment for cancer prior to the trial.

'The other disturbing aspect of the case was the fact my wife was also summonsed and was made to sit through five days of the hearing having just finished chemo and radiotherapy for breast cancer, he said

Mr Armour said he was taking legal advice in an attempt to clear his name.