A BERE Ferrers farmer who was given a jail term for causing his sheep unnecessary suffering has had his sentence quashed. John Dawe, 56, a former National Farmers? Union county president, successfully appealed against the two-month sentence at Plymouth Magistrates Court last Friday handed down by magistrates in July. But the farmer, who has 40 years experience in the job, was ordered to pay fines of £3,000 after he admitted failing to treat sick and lame animals. Judge Francis Gilbert QC said it was a ?very very serious case of neglect? and normally the sentence for such conduct would unquestionably be custody. ?What saves you today from that prison sentence are the very exceptional character references we have read about you and that we feel that at your age little is to be served by a sentence of two months,? he said. The judge ordered him to pay £1,000 towards the prosecution costs. Mr Dawe?s land at Wastor, near Lydford, was visited by an RSPCA inspector and a Defra vet in January where they found animals with extensive fleece loss due to sheep scab and 27 sheep lame by chronic foot rot, the court was told. William Higginson, prosecuting for the RSPCA said their health had been allowed to deteriorate and they remained untreated in spite of their obvious suffering. The farmer told the Defra vet that he visited the animals every two to three days but he did not want to call a vet because the sheep were only worth £15 each. Piers Norsworthy, defending, said that his client had taken on the burden of looking after his 800-acre farm himself after his son and his farmhand both became ill before Christmas. He was working 12 hours a day on the farm and doing the paperwork that went with it: ?Matters conspired against him and accumulated,? he said.
