Wild Justice’s Raptor Forensics Fund helps secure 4th gamekeeper conviction

We’re delighted to report that our Raptor Forensics Fund, established in 2020 to help support police investigations into alleged raptor persecution crime, has played a part in the conviction of a criminal gamekeeper in Dorset.

54-year old Paul Allen, a member of the National Gamekeepers Organisation and employed as a gamekeeper for a privately-run pheasant shoot on the Shaftesbury Estate near Wimbourne, was convicted at Weymouth Magistrates Court in January 2023 of carrying out multiple wildlife, poisons and firearms offences on the estate in March 2021 (here).

Following the discovery of a poisoned red kite on the estate in November 2020, a multi-agency raid led by Dorset Police’s (now former) wildlife crime officer Claire Dinsdale took place in March 2021 (see here) where the corpses of six dead buzzards were found by a pen behind the gamekeeper’s house (tests later showed they had all been shot, including one that was was estimated to have been shot in the last 24hrs). Officers also found the remains (bones) of at least three more buzzards on a bonfire.

A loaded, unsecure shotgun was found propped up behind a kitchen door and 55 rounds of ammunition were found in a shed. Neither the shotgun or the ammunition were covered by Allen’s firearms certificate.

Officers also found a number of dangerous, and banned, chemicals, including two bottles of Strychnine, two containers of Cymag and a packet of Ficam W (Bendiocarb) in various locations, including in a vehicle used by Allen.

Allen was sentenced on 16th February 2023 to a 15-week custodial sentence, suspended for 12 months. He also received fines totalling £2,022 and a compensation order to the value of £844.70.

The compensation order for £844.70 refers to the amount Allen must repay to our Raptor Forensics Fund. This is in relation to three pieces of work, undertaken as part of the police investigation, that was paid for from our fund, including the initial screening x-rays by a vet to determine that six of the buzzards contained shot and later post mortem examinations to confirm the buzzards had all been shot. The fund was also used to pay for an expert examination of the bones found on the remnants of a bonfire. This was undertaken by a specialist from the Natural History Museum who confirmed the presence of bones from at least three more buzzards.

This is the fourth conviction that our Raptor Forensics Fund has helped secure. The first one was gamekeeper Hilton Prest who was found guilty in December 2021 of the unlawful use of a trap in Cheshire (see here). The second one was gamekeeper John Orrey who was convicted in January 2022 of beating to death two buzzards he’d caught in a trap in Nottinghamshire (here). The third one was gamekeeper Archie Watson who was convicted in June 2022 of multiple raptor persecution and firearms offences on a pheasant shoot in Wiltshire (see here).

Thank you to all those who contributed to our Raptor Forensics Fund* and thanks also to the PAW Forensic Working Group (a sub-group of the Partnership for Action Against Wildlife Crime) who administer our fund and ensure that police officers can access it without delay to help progress their investigations into raptor persecution crimes.

If you’d like to donate to our work, please click here.

*Contributors to the Raptor Forensics Fund include the Northern England Raptor Forum, Tayside & Fife Raptor Study Group, Devon Birds, and a number of individuals who wish to remain anonymous.