Farmer, 84, held over shot Briton
AN 84-year-old tenant farmer has been remanded in custody accused of shooting dead a British landowner in France after a row about cows.
Jean Moreau is alleged to have shot David Daniels, 72, outside his farmhouse in the village of Edon, Charente.
Mr Moreau has been placed under investigation after a hearing on Thursday. He will undergo a psychiatric assessment before a trial expected to take place later this year.
His son Pascal, 48, has been released. The pair were arrested after Mr Daniels died after being shot in the chest as he took out the rubbish on Tuesday.
Mr Daniels, who lived in the farmhouse with wife Gay, 77, had been involved in a longrunning despite with the Moreaus, who are tenant farmers on his land.
Mr Moreau, who fought in the Algerian War of independence in the 1950s and 60s, was a described as a ‘hard and rural’ man who could be ‘capable of fits of anger’ but rarely left his property in recent years. His other son Roland, 56, said he was a ‘desperate’ man who feared losing his livelihood.
He claimed the Danielses wanted ‘picture postcard’ views from their farmhouse and did not want cattle and farming equipment on the land.
Mr Daniels and his wife, who also have a flat in London, bought the dilapidated farmhouse and surrounding 320 acres 25 years ago. They kept the Moreaus on as tenant farmers but neighbours said they had never seen eye to eye.
However, friends said Mr Daniels had ‘garnered genuine respect from local people’.