Rabbit poacher caught by light
Last updated 09:41, Friday, 04 July 2008
A CUMBRIAN man has been fined for poaching rabbits from a farmer’s field in Haltwhistle.
Neil Sharpe (29), of Workington, wrote to Tynedale Magistrates’ Court pleading guilty to unlawfully taking the animals from Bellister Haugh on January 30.
Prosecuting, Alison Wilkinson said that two police officers from Haltwhistle station were alerted to a report of two men on the land at night.
When they arrived on scene, they saw a torch light and a white Ford Escort van.
The officers drove down to the light and then to the van where they found two men sitting in the vehicle with a lamp, a scrap metal pole with hooks on and 12 dead rabbits.
Sharpe was fined £100, ordered to pay costs of £30 and a £15 victim surcharge.
Magistrates also ordered the forfeiture of the rabbits and all the equipment used in the offence.
