Wild Justice Forensics Fund supports 68 police investigations into suspected raptor persecution
In October 2020, Wild Justice established a Raptor Forensics Fund to help support forensic testing in police investigations concerned with bird of prey persecution.
Additional funding support was provided by The Northern England Raptor Forum, Tayside & Fife Raptor Study Group, Devon Birds, Rare Bird Alert and a number of individuals who wish to remain anonymous.
Our fund is administered solely by the PAW Forensic Working Group (a sub-group of the Partnership for Action Against Wildlife Crime) and is open to any regional or national statutory agency in the UK. For further details please visit the PAW Forensic Working Group website here.
Typically, the fund is used to support the police in the very early stages of an enquiry, where there is suspicion of a crime but insufficient evidence to meet the criteria required to submit a carcass for Government testing. To prevent any delay in progressing an incident, which could also involve a live injured bird of prey, immediate access to funds is available to officers to cover the costs of x-rays and post mortems. Further funding is available once it has been established that a crime has been committed and could cover the costs of DNA testing or other specialist work. Where a case progresses to court and results in conviction, courts are now seeking costs orders against offenders to reimburse the costs of the forensic work, which means that funding can be returned and used again in another case.
Since being established in 2020, our fund has supported 68 investigations and has been used to pay for 43 post mortems, 29 x-rays, one CT scan and two DNA profilings.
Some of those 68 investigations have now ended, either because, for example, there wasn’t any evidence of criminality, or there was some evidence but it was insufficient to meet the criminal threshold, or because no suspects were identified, or because the carcass tested positive for avian influenza which prevented any further analysis. Some investigations are on-going and we hope to be able to report on the outcome of those in due course.
Eight investigations have so far resulted in prosecutions and subsequent convictions. Seven of the eight convictions involved gamekeepers on Pheasant shoots. Here are the eight cases:
Gamekeeper Hilton Prest who was found guilty in December 2021 of the unlawful use of a trap on a Pheasant shoot in Cheshire (see here).
Gamekeeper John Orrey who was convicted in January 2022 of beating to death two buzzards he’d caught in a trap on a Pheasant shoot in Nottinghamshire (see here).
Gamekeeper Archie Watson who was convicted in June 2022 of multiple raptor persecution and firearms offences on a Pheasant shoot in Wiltshire (see here).
Gamekeeper David Matthews who was convicted in June 2022 of possession of an unauthorised poison on a Pheasant shoot in North Wales (see here).
Gamekeeper Matthew Stroud who was convicted in October 2022 of multiple poisoning and firearms offences on a Pheasant shoot in Norfolk (see here).
Gamekeeper Paul Allen who was convicted in January 2023 of carrying out multiple wildlife, poisons and firearms offences on a Pheasant shoot in Dorset (see here).
Gamekeeper Dominic Green who was convicted in October 2023 for possession of an offensive weapon on a Pheasant shoot in Norfolk (see here).
Joe Morris who was convicted in November 2024 for using an air rifle to kill a Tawny Owl and a Woodpigeon in a local park in Lancashire (see here).
The illegal persecution of birds of prey, especially on land managed for gamebird shooting, is an issue close to our hearts. Indeed, it was our frustration at the lack of prosecutions for these crimes that was the catalyst for us to set up Wild Justice in the first place, so we’re absolutely delighted to see that our fund is proving to be helpful and effective.
Thank you to everyone who has supported this project. If you’d like to donate to our work, please click here.