Large scale fraud and criminality on Pembrokeshire mega-herd farm.

ollie989898 · Mar 13, 2024

This kind of practice will just result in the government not paying for any animal condemned with TB.

I don't agree with TB policy as it stands but I especially do not agree with people committing fraud in this way and robbing the tax payer.

BuskhillFarm · Mar 13, 2024

ollie989898 said:
This kind of practice will just result in the government not paying for any animal condemned with TB.

I don't agree with TB policy as it stands but I especially do not agree with people committing fraud in this way and robbing the tax payer.

But if TB was eradicated where would all the private and Defra/Daera vets get their gravy train from?

ollie989898 · Mar 13, 2024

BuskhillFarm said:
But if TB was eradicated where would all the private and Defra/Daera vets get their gravy train from?

Totally agree.

I find the whole policy illogical myself.

All milk is pasteurised. All carcasses are inspected. Cattle confirmed as reactors still enter the food chain after inspection. None of it makes any sense.

Pistonbroke · Mar 13, 2024

'Reckless' farmers fined huge sum for swapping tags on TB-infected cows

Charles, Henry and Edward Hartt were found to have ignored regulations by using ear tags on cows that had been infected with the disease

www.walesonline.co.uk

Pistonbroke · Mar 13, 2024

A few more details in this article

d williams · Mar 13, 2024

puppet said:
Assurance gives you a month to correct any issues. Most of it is legislation anyway. You get 2 weeks to get your house in order before they come.
Cross compliance visit is unannounced or a call to say they are coming in an hour. They are detective, jury and judge. They can then penalise you 3-5% of subs before they leave. Not recorded some replacement sheep tags. Kerching.
Field size wrong - off their own maps I might add - penalty.
I was docked £500 because the agronomist and the contractor used the wrong spray. A minor issue with no longstanding effects. I never even saw the spray.

That says to me you didn’t comply to the rules so their are well within their right to do so
I’d also say there’s a conversation to be had with your agronomist
These people are humans just doing their jobs you want a payment off someone then play by the rules or don’t accept the monies simple
This case is someone that’s just taken advantage of the situation and should suffer the consequences which I think are very lenient if fraud was committed on this scale regarding tax or vat there would be jail

Cowabunga · Mar 13, 2024

d williams said:
That says to me you didn’t comply to the rules so their are well within their right to do so
I’d also say there’s a conversation to be had with your agronomist
These people are humans just doing their jobs you want a payment off someone then play by the rules or don’t accept the monies simple
This case is someone that’s just taken advantage of the situation and should suffer the consequences which I think are very lenient if fraud was committed on this scale regarding tax or vat there would be jail

The jails are full apparently, so very few thieves or fraudsters are now jailed. The total costs, confiscations and fines these crooks have to pay amounts to nearly £390,000. Their own defence costs may, or may not be covered by their insurance company. It is a substantial punishment if seen in isolation but relative to the scale of their business, it’s hardly going to bother them much. According to the article they had up to 3000 head of cattle at one point, which even as barrens [average of a poor £800] would be worth near £2,500,000, to put the costs into perspective.

d williams · Mar 13, 2024

Cowabunga said:
The jails are full apparently, so very few thieves or fraudsters are now jailed. The total costs, confiscations and fines these crooks have to pay amounts to nearly £390,000. Their own defence costs may, or may not be covered by their insurance company. It is a substantial punishment if seen in isolation but relative to the scale of their business, it’s hardly going to bother them much. According to the article they had up to 3000 head of cattle at one point, which even as barrens [average of a poor £800] would be worth near £2,500,000, to put the costs into perspective.

Can you insure against breaking the rules??

betweenthelines · Mar 13, 2024

Just a few thoughts:

Tb test isn't very accurate so there's more than likely been more "innocent" cows slaughtered that infected cows avoiding the bullet (for whatever reason)

Pasteurisation kills Tb so there's no risk to public health if infected animals remain on farm

UK Govt deliberately allows a pool of infection (badgers) to live unhindered on farms

Govt compensation is less than the value of the animal let alone the associated costs the farmer has to bear.

I can't imagine any other industry that would allow itself to suffer so much due to an unreliable test whilst being stopped from controlling the cause for a problem that ultimately has zero affect on the general public.

Cowabunga · Mar 13, 2024

d williams said:
Can you insure against breaking the rules??

You can insure defence legal expenses. Not any confiscations, the prosecutor’s costs or fines as I understand it. Your annual insurance consultation should have explained this.

Princess Pooper · Mar 13, 2024

Homesy said:
how did they get away with it for so long.
When you have a reactor, it gets a green tag which takes a piece of ear for DNA testing. Are they not all cross checked ?

I was wondering that. It suggests that either the DNA is not routinely cross-checked to the carcass which I suppose is actually expensive so it makes sense.
Either that or they were deciding which were reactors on their own judgement before they were actually read by the vet and the tags were swapped before the reactor tags went in.

In England we have to go on table valuations so there would have been no real benefit to doing this to increase compensation (although some dodgy buggers might still try it in order to NOT lose an important bloodline).

What a disgrace, deliberate and prolonged fraud and wonderful material for the dairy-farmer haters.

betweenthelines · Mar 13, 2024

No one will Insure you against breaking the law.

glasshouse · Mar 13, 2024

betweenthelines said:
Just a few thoughts:

Tb test isn't very accurate so there's more than likely been more "innocent" cows slaughtered that infected cows avoiding the bullet (for whatever reason)

Pasteurisation kills Tb so there's no risk to public health if infected animals remain on farm

UK Govt deliberately allows a pool of infection (badgers) to live unhindered on farms

Govt compensation is less than the value of the animal let alone the associated costs the farmer has to bear.

I can't imagine any other industry that would allow itself to suffer so much due to an unreliable test whilst being stopped from controlling the cause for a problem that ultimately has zero affect on the general public.

Exactly
The laws an ass

glasshouse · Mar 13, 2024

ollie989898 said:
This kind of practice will just result in the government not paying for any animal condemned with TB.

I don't agree with TB policy as it stands but I especially do not agree with people committing fraud in this way and robbing the tax payer.

If govt paid proper value, dodges would not be necessary

BuskhillFarm · Mar 13, 2024

glasshouse said:
If govt paid proper value, dodges would not be necessary

I’ve never heard of a farmer complain about how much they’ve been paid for an animal I.e. they’re getting about 120% of the animals value, for if they where getting 100% even the waterworks would soon be on

BuskhillFarm · Mar 13, 2024

Love the way the thread is more about money than the animal welfare point of him killing healthy animals and keeping sick ones

DairyNerd · Mar 13, 2024

betweenthelines said:
Just a few thoughts:

Tb test isn't very accurate so there's more than likely been more "innocent" cows slaughtered that infected cows avoiding the bullet (for whatever reason)

Pasteurisation kills Tb so there's no risk to public health if infected animals remain on farm

UK Govt deliberately allows a pool of infection (badgers) to live unhindered on farms

Govt compensation is less than the value of the animal let alone the associated costs the farmer has to bear.

I can't imagine any other industry that would allow itself to suffer so much due to an unreliable test whilst being stopped from controlling the cause for a problem that ultimately has zero affect on the general public.

Your first point is just wrong. The test has a specificity of around 99.8% so roughly 1 in 5000 false positives. It has a sensitivity of maximum 80%, so at least 1 in 5 animals infected with TB within a herd are missed. Put another way: False positives are very rare, missing infected animals happens pretty much every time a herd with a history of TB is tested which is why is is such a persistent problem.

As much as we all love to blame deer, badgers and my Aunt Mildred.... the simple fact is that cow to cow transmisson is the vast bulk of TB transmission on every farm and the relatively poor sensitivity of the test is why it is such a headache to get rid of once you have it.

I have no love of the current TB policy at all but it is also pretty misunderstood.

Cotlandfarmer · Mar 13, 2024

DairyNerd said:
Your first point is just wrong. The test has a specificity of around 99.8% so roughly 1 in 5000 false positives. It has a sensitivity of maximum 80%, so at least 1 in 5 animals infected with TB within a herd are missed. Put another way: False positives are very rare, missing infected animals happens pretty much every time a herd with a history of TB is tested which is why is is such a persistent problem.

As much as we all love to blame deer, badgers and my Aunt Mildred.... the simple fact is that cow to cow transmisson is the vast bulk of TB transmission on every farm and the relatively poor sensitivity of the test is why it is such a headache to get rid of once you have it.

I have no love of the current TB policy at all but it is also pretty misunderstood.

Not sure you're right on that one, I've lost five cows since September, none have had visible tb lesions or had a positive culture.

steveR · Mar 13, 2024

DairyNerd said:
Your first point is just wrong. The test has a specificity of around 99.8% so roughly 1 in 5000 false positives. It has a sensitivity of maximum 80%, so at least 1 in 5 animals infected with TB within a herd are missed. Put another way: False positives are very rare, missing infected animals happens pretty much every time a herd with a history of TB is tested which is why is is such a persistent problem.

As much as we all love to blame deer, badgers and my Aunt Mildred.... the simple fact is that cow to cow transmisson is the vast bulk of TB transmission on every farm and the relatively poor sensitivity of the test is why it is such a headache to get rid of once you have it.

I have no love of the current TB policy at all but it is also pretty misunderstood.

@matthew care to comment here?

BuskhillFarm · Mar 13, 2024

DairyNerd said:
Your first point is just wrong. The test has a specificity of around 99.8% so roughly 1 in 5000 false positives. It has a sensitivity of maximum 80%, so at least 1 in 5 animals infected with TB within a herd are missed. Put another way: False positives are very rare, missing infected animals happens pretty much every time a herd with a history of TB is tested which is why is is such a persistent problem.

As much as we all love to blame deer, badgers and my Aunt Mildred.... the simple fact is that cow to cow transmisson is the vast bulk of TB transmission on every farm and the relatively poor sensitivity of the test is why it is such a headache to get rid of once you have it.

I have no love of the current TB policy at all but it is also pretty misunderstood.

It’s only so accurate as the cows are pretty infected and infectious by time skin test shows up, a blood test will show TB up approx 2-3months before skin test. But they can be done by non vets so where the “jobs for the boys” in that?

Large scale fraud and criminality on Pembrokeshire mega-herd farm.

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