Tullamore District Court heard that cattle on Greg Neville’s farmland at Lynally, Tullamore stampeded through a fence after being startled on May 11, 2019.
8th April 2021
A YOUNG Tipperary man has been prosecuted after an Offaly farmer used his mobile phone to record him lamping rabbits on his land.
Tullamore District Court heard that cattle on Greg Neville’s farmland at Lynally, Tullamore stampeded through a fence after being startled on May 11, 2019.
Sergeant James O’Sullivan said Mr Neville told gardai he came upon a number of individuals trespassing on his land.
They were lamping – hunting rabbits with dogs – without his permission and he recorded them on his phone, along with the vehicle they were using.
Sergeant O’Sullivan said it was established that Jonathan O’Donoghue, 12 St Mary’s Road, Killenaule, Tipperary, was the driver of the car and he had come to Lynally with a number of others from Killenaule.
A fence in a ditch was broken by the startled cattle but the cost of the damage was not known.
Donal Farrelly, defending solicitor, told Judge Catherine Staines his client was not in court but he had spoken to him that morning and a guilty plea was being entered.
Mr Farrelly said the accused was a 20-year-old man who was married with one child, born nine weeks earlier.
His client admitted coming up to the farmland with dogs for lurching because he thought it would be a good place to do it.
He knew he should not have been doing it.
Judge Staines said she would consider a restorative justice report in the case and would also like to know the value of the damage.
She adjourned the matter to June 16 next.
“If he doesn’t turn up on the next day I’ll issue a warrant for his arrest,” she said.
NORTH WEST HUNT SABOTEURS 