Hope for Geronimo after he wins death row judicial review
AN alpaca facing being culled after twice testing positive for bovine TB has received a temporary reprieve.
Owner Helen Macdonald believes Geronimo’s results are wrong and had been refused permission to have him tested a third time.
This month she lost an appeal at the High Court and a warrant was signed for her pet’s destruction.
However, an application for a judicial review, including a bid for a temporary injunction to halt the cull order by the Department for Food, Environment and Rural Affairs, will be considered today.
Ms Macdonald’s solicitor Jan Mugerwa said: “Defra has agreed to extend their undertaking until 5pm on Tuesday. A judge has been assigned to consider urgently the question of the injunction and disclosure.”
Ms Macdonald, who owns a farm in Wickwar, Glos, has received an outpouring of support from the public over Geronimo.
More than 130,000 people signed a petition calling on Boris Johnson to halt the killing.
She believes the test results are false positives but last week the
Government insisted all the evidence on the animal’s condition had been “looked at very carefully”.
The British Alpaca Society said the stand-off between Defra and Ms Macdonald has undermined confidence in the voluntary bovine TB testing regime.
A mass culling of badgers has been held over recent years to stop the spread of the disease to cattle.