A WEST Devon huntsman has been cleared of damaging a badger sett after a judge ruled he may have been the victim of mistaken identity.

Andrew Bellamy, aged 41, had always denied that he was a man caught on film by anti-hunt monitors sending a terrier underground and then digging out and killing a fox which it located.

He was found not guilty on appeal at Exeter Crown Court after Recorder Mr Malcolm Gibney said it was impossible to be sure he was the man on the film.

The Recorder also ruled there was no evidence that the badger sett had been active at the time of the digging two years ago.

After the case Bellamy said:'I am very glad that justice has been done. This has taken two years of my life and ha had a detrimental effect on me and my family. I am just glad it is all over.'

Mr Bellamy is the huntsman with the Spooners and West Dartmoor Hunt where his wife Clare is the hunt master. He was also the terrier man with the neighbouring South Devon Hunt, which has its kennels at Denbury, near Newton Abbot.

Mr Bellamy, of The Kennels, Sampford Spiney, appealed to Exeter Crown Court against his conviction by South Devon Magistrates last year, for two offences of interfering with a badger sett.

He was cleared by the Recorder Gibney who ruled in his favour on both the main issues in the case, whether he was the man on the video and whether it was an active sett.

The Recorder, who sat with two lay magistrates, said: 'We have concluded the case has not been made out. We have not seen any evidence of the sett being in use on that day.

'The second issue we have had to consider is identification. The burden of proof is on the prosecution and we ask ourselves if we feel sure one of the two men on the quad bike was Mr Bellamy.

'We are not satisfied — we therefore conclude on the two core issues in this case, the appeal is allowed.'

During the four day hearing the prosecution alleged Bellamy was a bald-headed man caught on a video clip video by hunt monitor Edmund Shephard.

The footage showed the man digging into an apparent badger sett during a meet of the South Devon Hunt. It was claimed he arrived on a quadbike with a second huntsman and put a black terrier into the ground to flush out a fox.

Mr Bellamy told the court he was not the man on the quad bike, that he had been laying trails on foot that day, and that none of his terriers were black.

The Recorder awarded him costs to cover travelling expenses.