Fine for cockerels with much to crow about

A COUPLE whose pet cockerels were found to crow up to six times a minute have been fined £1,000.

Jorg and Jacqueline Krafft, who have five cockerels and numerous hens in their back garden in Folkestone, Kent, were given a noise abatement notice in 2013 after the birds were heard crowing up to 360 times an hour.

When the pair took no action to stop the noise, magistrates in Canterbury fined them.

The court heard how the cockerels have been crowing at up to 60 decibels, double the limit the World Health Organisation considers acceptable background noise at night, every morning for the past two years.

Wai Tse, Shepway district council’s environmental protection officer, heard the cockerels crowing hundreds of times an hour and described it as “clearly audible, intrusive and distracting”.

Despite the officer visiting their home four times and the council writing to the couple warning them they were in breach of the noise abatement notice, no action was taken.

They have now been found guilty of breaching the notice and fined £500 each and ordered to pay a £50 victim surcharge and £270 court costs.

One neighbour, who asked not to be named, said the noise started about 6am and “went on all day”.

He said: “It drives you absolutely potty and you end up totally exhausted. I’ve tried ear plugs, but they don’t do much and I still get woken up.”

Stuart Peall, a Shepway councillor, described the couple as a “noise nuisance”. He said: “The cockerels crowed at all times of the day sometimes up to six times a minute. We always like to resolve noise problems informally but we had no response.”