Farmers told by police to go and get stolen sheep back themselves
A COUNTRYSIDE-LOVING couple had a stolen sheep traced by police – only to be shocked to be told to fetch it themselves from the thief.
Retired nurse Patricia Vaughan’s missing sheep was spotted by a witness being bundled into the back of a car on a mountain road.
The rustler’s number plate was passed on to police and the stolen ewe was found grazing in a back garden of a family home 10 miles away. But instead of taking the stolen sheep back to Patricia, police told her and husband Ivor to go and collect the animal themselves.
Patricia, 67, and Ivor, 70, were outraged at being asked to go and recover their ewe.
She said: “Normally you wouldn’t have to go to a house on your own to collect something that’s been stolen. It wouldn’t happen if it was a big television or expensive computer stolen in a city. The policeman told us the woman said she was saving the sheep from slaughter.
“The policeman said they had stopped her, but we could go and get the ewe from the lady’s garden but the police wouldn’t come with us.”
Patricia told how the animal was stolen from near their countryside home in the Brecon Beacons and taken to a council estate in Brynmawr, Blaenau Gwent.
Patricia, of Bwlch, near Brecon, said when they arrived at the woman’s house they found two children playing with the animal. She said: “The ewe was in the back garden and they had been feeding her with apples. They just said, ‘Is it your sheep and are you going to take her away?’. I said we had to – they had already named it Baa-bara. The children said their parents were sleeping.”
The couple have a flock of nearly 700 Welsh sheep for their wool and have their animals have the freedom to graze on Llangynidr Mountain.
Patricia, who has been farming for 38 years, said farmers were increasingly concerned over livestock thefts. She said: “We put them out after shearing in July and we normally find some missing – lots of farmers are losing sheep.”
A spokesman for Gwent Police said: “We were contacted by Dyfed-Powys Police, who had received reports of a possible theft of a sheep. The animal was later traced by Gwent Police officers to an address in Brynmawr. In consultation with the sheep’s owner, no criminal action was initiated.
“A 34-year-old local woman was later given a verbal warning by officers. We encourage anyone who is dissatisfied with the service provided to them by Gwent Police to contact our Professional Standards Department.”