Following on from the Millden gamekeeper case we have received a lot of queries about why many cases of apparently blatant wildlife crime are not prosecuted. There have been many suggestions of collusion, pressure from the powerful etc etc.

Of course we can’t completely rule out those suggestions but the most common reason is more prosaic. It is simply lack of evidence. Evidence is not just facts it is facts that are admissable in a court of law. For a successful prosecution the Crown needs to produce evidence of apparently criminal activity AND the identity of the suspected offender.

Because of the isolated areas in which much wildlife crime occurs and the highly professional nature of many of the perpetrators finding evidence of apparently criminal activity is not easy and undoubtedly many events go undetected. However once evidence of such activity is found the real work of pinpointing a suspected offender starts.

The first problem faced by investigators and prosecutors is that many, if not all of those interviewed about wildlife crimes will give ‘no comment’ answers as they are perfectly entitled to do. People may wonder why someone with nothing to hide would do this but it is fairly standard legal advice in Scotland and a court can draw no inference whatsoever from it. (The law in England & Wales and Northern Ireland is different).

The second problem is the way in which estates are managed. In any situation where gamekeepers share vehicles, equipment and beats it is almost impossible, when faced with a wall of silence, to pin an offence down to a specific individual. Without an specific individual to charge a case cannot be brought no matter how compelling the evidence of crime. A quick trawl back through wildlife crimes cases brought over the last twenty or so years shows that in many cases where gamekeepers have been convicted (over 60% of raptor cases) it has been where they were single working. On large estates with many gamekeepers, swapping beats, vehicles and equipment means it is almost impossible to pinpoint a single individual with the certainty that a criminal case requires.

Of course none of the above applies to estate managers. They COULD, if they chose, organise the working of the estate so that proving individual responsibility in a criminal court was much easier. They COULD instruct their staff not to break the law and dismiss those who do so. They COULD make it clear that the desire to get bigger and bigger bags will not excuse criminality. The balance of proof under employment law is substantially less than under criminal law and inference can be drawn from ‘no comment’ answers so this would not be difficult IF the will existed.

These simple steps starting with a direct and MEANINGFUL instruction not to break the law and serious sanctions for breach would lead to a huge reduction in wildlife crime. It would seem that in spite of the many fine words there is no real appetite amongst many shooting estates to tackle this scourge of our countryside.