TWO charities have welcomed the successful prosecution of a gamekeeper who set a pole trap on a North Yorkshire estate.
Ryan Christopher Waite, who worked on the Swinton estate near Masham, pleaded guilty to two charges related to the spring-trap he set on a tree stump near Healey In June 2013. He was fined £250 and ordered to pay £85 prosecution costs and a £20 statutory surcharge.
Harrogate magistrates accepted his account that he had set it to catch squirrels, not birds of prey as alleged by the Crown Prosecution Service. Pole traps have been banned since 1904.
Howard Jones, of the Royal Society for the Preservation of Birds (RSPB) which covertly filmed Waite setting the trap said it was disappointing that gamekeepers were continuing to use illegal Victorian techniques.
Rachel Newman, director of operations at the League Against Cruel Sports, which alerted the RSPB to the activity, said the traps caused unnecessary suffering to all animals caught in them.
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