So just who is the Sandringham bird murderer?
A spate of mystery deaths at the Queen’s Norfolk retreat But FOUR investigations by police fail to find any culprit And now another grim discovery: a sparrowhawk killed by poisoned bait...
IT HAS all the ingredients of a country house murder-mystery: poisoned victims, accusing letters, vanishing evidence and a host of suspects.
Sadly, it is no work of fiction, rather a real-life whodunnit that has cast a shadow over the Queen’s Norfolk retreat, Sandringham.
Thankfully none of the victims were house guests. Instead, the case involves protected birds of prey who are believed to have met their end on the estate, or nearby, in curious circumstances.
And in the best traditions of Agatha Christie, the crimes have baffled the local constabulary.
One of the mysterious cases hit the headlines two months ago when The Mail on Sunday revealed the death at Sandringham of a goshawk, the body of which was later incinerated.
Two years earlier a rare Montagu’s harrier fitted with a tracking device vanished, and before that there were claims that two hen harriers – which face extinction in the UK – were blasted out of the sky while flying over the 20,000 acre estate.
Prince Harry and his friend William van Cutsem, who were shooting duck and pigeon nearby, were questioned by police but denied knowledge of the incident, as did a gamekeeper.
The Mail on Sunday can now report that another case has come to light, and this time there was tangible evidence – a poisoned sparrowhawk. They are protected under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 and the punishment for killing one is up to six months in jail and a £5,000 fine.
Examination of the crime scene on the estate revealed a vital clue: a pigeon found a few feet from the sparrowhawk had been laced with a poison that would have killed any bird of prey scavenging on its remains. Tests on the pigeon found traces of bendiocarb, the same pesticide that killed the hawk.
Gamekeepers on other estates have previously been prosecuted for poisoning hawks to stop them killing game birds.
Officials from Natural England, the government agency tasked with protecting wildlife, launched an investigation.
It is understood that at least one member of the Royals’ staff was tested for residue of the poison but none was found. Police searched some premises and asked for information about gamekeepers and their beats but found no evidence to link estate workers to the crime.
Details of the sparrowhawk case only emerged through a freedom
‘A vital clue… a pigeon laced with pesticide’
of information request to Government agency the Chemical Regulations Directorate (CRD).
The request was made by animal rights group Raptor Persecution UK following the MoS story about the goshawk. Mysteriously, the name Sandringham is redacted in letters and emails relating to the October 2009 incident involving the sparrowhawk. Estate staff names are also blanked out. It is not clear who censored the correspondence but the location – Norfolk – was left in, as was the description ‘the private home of four generations of British monarchs’.
Emails also show that Government lawyers debated whether an estate that is owned by the Queen – who is patron of the RSPB – could be investigated over the alleged poisoning.
Police have conducted four investigations in ten years into confirmed or suspected deaths of birds of prey at Sandringham and land bordering the estate. No one has been prosecuted.
The sparrowhawk inquiry did reveal that dangerous pesticides were being improperly stored. The breaches led to a separate investigation and an official warning from the CRD.
Estate staff claimed in a letter to the CRD that the sparrowhawk and pigeon were killed elsewhere then dumped on the estate to implicate one of the estate’s staff in ‘a despicable crime’.
The estate also said it had tightened its pesticides procedures.
A spokesman for Sandringham said last night: ‘In 2009 the body of a sparrowhawk was found on the Sandringham Estate.
‘A thorough investigation was undertaken by Natural England, with which the estate co-operated fully. No one on the estate was found to be in any way liable and no further action was taken.’