1 week Ago
Susan Soul, who owns Busgrove Wood near Henley, has opted for a trial by jury after being charged with 11 offences between October 31, 2021 and October 31, 2024. The 72-year-old has been charged with three counts of causing unnecessary suffering to a protected animal, two counts of duty of a person responsible for an animal to ensure welfare, three counts of failing to comply with an animal by-product requirement, one count of contravening an order by a location authority, and two counts of failing to record details of veterinary medical product. Soul, of Busgrove Lane, Stoke Row, has denied the offences and has opted for a trial which will take place on May 8 this year at Oxford Crown Court.
In the charges, it states that between April 4 and August 7 last year, Soul failed to care for a boar with an ingrown tusk as well as failing to protect a new born piglet which was eaten by an adult pig. The indictment adds that Soul reportedly allowed a number of piglets to suffer high levels of mortality by being ‘exposed to inappropriate breeding procedures’. The indictment claims Soul ‘did not take such steps as were reasonable in all the circumstances to ensure that the needs of an animal for which you were responsible, namely a quantity of pigs, were met to the extent required by good practice’.
Soul is also accused of failing to ensure that the body, or part of the body, of pigs that was not for human consumption was not stored in a manner to ensure animals/birds did not have access to it during consignment or disposal. It is alleged she had ‘numerous dead pigs’ stored in ‘nine blue barrels’ that had been delayed in being collected from her land. As well as the alleged failure to dispose of the pigs, Soul is accused of failing to keep ‘proof of purchase of all veterinary medicinal products acquired’ for the pigs as well as contravening a regulation of a local authority.
The defendant pleaded not guilty to all the charges put to her on April 4 this year at Oxford Magistrates’ Court. She opted for a trial by jury. This choice is eligible for ‘either-way’ offences.
It could have also been tried by magistrate judges instead. An either way offence is defined depending on the circumstances of the offences and the defendant’s choice..
