In a case widely reported in the farming press, Jeremy Cave appeared on behalf of East Sussex County Council at the sentencing hearing listed before District Judge James at Brighton Magistrates Court on 20 March 2017.

The case was brought by the council’s Trading Standards department working with the Animal and Plant Health Agency against Sussex farmer David Butler, trading as a partnership, for breach of regulations directed at the control of bovine tuberculosis and welfare offences.

At an earlier hearing Butler had admitted 4 counts of unlicensed movements of stock on and onto premises in East and West Sussex whilst his farms were in ‘TB breakdown’, an allegation of failing to cleanse and disinfect premises and equipment, of failing to isolate reactive stock and of neglect.

The partnership owns a number of farms in both Sussex counties and Dorset. Butler was fined £11,250 and ordered to pay all of the Council’s costs.

For further details of the case, please see the following reports: