Charles Hartt & Ors v Pembrokeshire County Council

Repeated breaches of cattle-identification requirements which frustrate the control of bovine tuberculosis are serious regulatory offences. They may pass the custody threshold, but substantial fines may nevertheless meet the gravity of the offending where the relevant mitigation justifies that course. In fixing fines, the court must assess an offender’s real financial circumstances, which may include the assets and profitability of a family farming partnership rather than only the individual drawings received from it. It must also take account of confiscation and prosecution costs. Food-hygiene sentencing guidance is not an appropriate analogue where the legislation addresses a different mischief. A low risk of disease entering the food chain does not mitigate offending under the Cattle Identification (Wales) Regulations 2007.

Three members of a family farming partnership pleaded guilty in the Crown Court at Swansea to 12 offences each under the Cattle Identification (Wales) Regulations 2007. The offences involved the reuse or misuse of cattle ear-tag numbers and the knowing provision of false or misleading information to officials. The conduct undermined measures intended to control bovine tuberculosis.

They were each fined £24,000, and confiscation and prosecution-costs orders were made. They appealed with permission, contending that the fines were disproportionate, that their means had been inadequately assessed, and that food-hygiene sentencing guidance should have informed the sentencing exercise.

1. The appeals were dismissed. The sentencing judge’s approach was neither wrong in principle nor manifestly excessive.

2. The offences were grave. Repeated misidentification over three and a half years undermined the bovine tuberculosis prevention and control regime, increased the risk of transmission within the herd and to neighbouring farms, and caused animal-welfare concerns. The deliberate alteration of a freeze-brand number, the knowing supply of false information to officials, and the retention of a positive-testing animal for 14 months were particularly serious.

3. The court rejected the proposed analogy with food-hygiene sentencing guidance. The food-hygiene regime addresses the safety of food for individual consumption. The Cattle Identification (Wales) Regulations 2007 form part of the measures to prevent the spread of bovine tuberculosis. Accordingly, the low risk of transmission through pasteurised milk or meat entering the food chain did not mitigate these offences. A higher risk of human transmission would instead have aggravated them.

4. The offending could well have passed the custody threshold. However, the judge was entitled, having regard to the appellants’ good character, the absence of later offending, and the circumstances as a whole, to conclude that substantial fines could meet its gravity.

5. In applying sections 124 and 125 of the Sentencing Act 2020, the judge was entitled to assess the financial means of the family farming business globally. He was not confined to the appellants’ modest monthly drawings. He also properly took account of the confiscation and costs orders under section 13 of the Proceeds of Crime Act 2007. The totality principle was observed by fixing a total penalty reflecting all 12 offences and dividing it between the counts. Equal sentences were appropriate because the appellants were equally culpable and responsible for the harm.

• Court of Appeal (Criminal Division): dismissed the appeals against sentence and upheld fines of £24,000 on each appellant.

• Crown Court at Swansea: the appellants pleaded guilty on 25 March 2022 to 12 offences each under the Cattle Identification (Wales) Regulations 2007. On 4 March 2024, HHJ Vosper KC imposed consecutive fines of £2,000 on each count, together with agreed confiscation and prosecution-costs orders.