Garda chase ends in surprise find... two sheep in the boot of a Skoda car
Off icers then presented with a €4,000 bill for care of the two animals
YOU could call it a ewe-dunit.
A garda was stunned when he opened the boot of a car that he had been chasing, to find two live sheep tied up inside.
And officers were even more flabbergasted when they were ‘fleeced’ with a bill for nearly €4,000 to take care of the two stolen animals – including bills for €20 a night for ‘bed and breakfast’ for each sheep.
The animals were discovered after a car which had been ‘acting suspiciously’ refused to stop for a garda on a routine night-time Covid19 patrol.
The lone garda gave chase in his patrol car, but the fleeing vehicle drove into a field and five men ran off, leaving the red Skoda Octavia saloon behind near Rathangan, Co. Kildare, on March 21.
As he was carrying out a search of the car, the garda opened the boot to be greeted by the overpowering smell of livestock and two sheep with their legs roughly tied up.
It is thought the sheep had been stolen to be killed at a ‘clandestine’ slaughterhouse and the meat either eaten or sold on.
The terrified sheep were taken back to the local Garda station in the same Skoda car which was seized for having no tax. The animals were kept at the station overnight while officers tried to figure out what to do with them.
‘They were in the compound of the station for a time and I don’t think the gardaí gave them any names,’ a source said. ‘But I guess if they did they’d call them Bo and Peep.’
The gardaí made enquiries with the local council and a management company was contracted to take the animals while officers tried to trace their owners. The company was asked to collect the sheep, feed them and finally rehome them which it has done – but gardaí were shocked to discover they were being billed almost €4,000 for the job.
According to a source, the bill for about 70 nights’ accommodation consisted of ‘€490 per sheep to collect, €150 to rehouse them, and “B&B”, which we can only presume is bed and breakfast at a cost of €20 per sheep per night’.
Each animal is thought to be worth about €100, and gardaí were told by agricultural experts that it should only cost about €4 to have a sheep graze for a day. The owner of the sheep has not been traced because they had no identifying markers on them and the five men who fled from the car – which bore false registration plates – have not been caught, although investigations are continuing.
‘The whole affair has proved expensive with a bill just short of €3,800,’ a source said. ‘The gardaí will not be paying it. It may not be their money, but they are responsible and this is like dipping their hands into all of our pockets.
‘The sheep had no identifying marks on them and the owner has not been established. It is thought that these sheep would have been destined for slaughter and consumption at a local clandestine house. They weren’t going to the factory.’
Despite the absurdity of this case, local sheep farmer Percy Podger told the Irish Mail on Sunday sheep rustling has ‘escalated significantly’ in recent years. He believes the extent of frustration among sheep farmers means the ‘writing is on the wall’ and that matters will escalate into confrontations if it continues.
Sheep farmer Mr Podger – who breeds Schwarzkopf sheep on the Curragh – said he has had many sheep stolen and killed and the gangs responsible often threaten farmers. He said: ‘We go out and find our sheep either gone, dead or with serious injuries and we are so fed up with this, fed up of being abused or threatened or intimidated. Farmers don’t want the problem, we can’t work all day and patrol all night. ’
Mr Podger travels to Germany to collect the breed of sheep he specialises in and said it’s devastating when the sheep are taken or killed after all the work involved.
‘Whether they’re commercial sheep or pure bred, when a man goes to the effort of doing the work, that’s his income. And then these guys turn around and take them for meat when you know damn well some of them should have been in shows or someone has them bought and you go out and you find their throats cut and find the skin.
‘Farmers are seriously fed up with this. It’s inevitable this is going to escalate. Do I need to spell it out? The extent of confrontation, farmers are really, really fed up with it. It’s much better that it stops than it escalates,’ he said.
Mr Podger told how farmers are working together and with the gardaí to try and combat the problem. He singled out Kildare gardaí for their ‘incredible work’ in trying put a stop to the gangs involved.
‘Sheep had no identifying marks’
‘The farmers are networking and collaborating and the farmers want to help the gardaí stamp it out... The gardaí’s approach and their attitude has been great, it’s a big change and a positive one. From me personally, and from the National Sheep Breeders’ Association who fully back this, we are very impressed their work [they] in a three-month period are hoping to prosecute five gangs.’
Seán Dennehy, national sheep chairman of the IFA, told the MoS: ‘This is widespread around the country. I am a sheep farmer in Cork and we have 32 on our committee from every country in Ireland and it regularly comes up. We had an incident in north Co. Dublin last year where a farmer went out to these lads in his field during the day and he was beaten up. These guys are not just there with a lurcher and a lamp for rabbits, they’re there scoping out places to come back at a later stage.’
Mr Podger said the profile of the people responsible for stealing and killing sheep has changed over the years and there are now gangs with links to other forms of criminality involved.
He said: ‘These guys going out and taking the sheep, they’re not taking the bad ones and they’re not looking at them in the dark. They have a damn good idea of what they’re at. When farmers approach these people they are typically threatened.
‘My losses are running into thousands .... I’ve been threatened a number of times.
‘We’ve had a change in the profile of these guys who come here at night. It used to be a local guy coming out doing a bit of hunting, but in recent years it tends to be more criminally orientated.
‘What’s there now are guys who want to do the farmer harm and don’t give a damn about the sheep.
‘The big concern nationally is all this is going to escalate into something far more serious.’