Sheep rustling raises fears of illegal meat on the market

The theft of nearly 600 ewes and 900 lambs took place in the middle of the night from a 40-acre field in Stenigot near Louth last week in what is believed to be the largest single case of sheep rustling for the last 25 years.  

DC Nick Jones from Louth CID said: “This is clearly a very organised crime that would have involved a number of people and the use of two 3-tier articulated transporters.”

Peter Garbett, the NFU’s chief livestock advisor said that the latest theft was part of a wider trend of rising instances of livestock rustling,  driven partly by the inexoriably rise in the price of sheepmeat.

He said that the sheep would have been tagged, so in order to slaughter the animals for human consumption, it is likely that the thieves would have to falsify identification papers.    

“You'd expect there to be official stamps and checks on the meat's origin.

"One of the reasons we have identification is to make sure that we have traceablility through the food chain.

“The sheep may have been medicated or recently dipped and there is no gaurantee of hygiene. We are encouraging the trade to be viligiant and if they have any evidence of illegal trade, to report it to the police.”

Insurance company NFU Mutual told the Sunday Telegraph that it had received 142 claims for rustling in the first six months of this year, while police have estimated that around 33,000 sheep have been stolen from farms in England and Wales in the first eight months of this year.



>Bulls stolen from Lancashire farm

>Six arrested for suspected sheep rustling

>Thieves steal lamb worth £34,000 from Askerton

>Stolen Northumberland livestock feared on sale

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