A police force is facing an £80,000 damages bill after a High Court judge ruled they unlawfully seized a horse.


Lancashire Police officers suspected the Irish-bred palomino gypsy cob called Romeo was stolen property.

By the time he was returned to his owners they had been deprived of the chance to put him out to stud and to produce valuable and much-prized foals.

The judge awarded owner Brian Cash the money for the wrongful detention of Romeo for four months in 2006.

Romeo was expected to earn £500 per mare in stud fees so he was sent from his home in Ireland to stay in Blackpool, where builder and horse enthusiast William Brown planned to obtain local mares for him to serve.

But police suspected Mr Brown of money-laundering, theft and handling stolen goods and seized the horse in May 2006 and kept him until August.

'No evidence'

Deputy judge David Donaldson QC said that the police initially had grounds for suspecting Romeo had been stolen, but by mid-May inquiries had provided no evidence to that effect.

The detective in charge "sat on the case" hoping that some evidence would emerge against Mr Brown, but nothing did.

But the High Court judge rejected other claims by Mr Cash for loss of stud fees, the cost of buying a replacement stallion and loss in the value of Romeo due to alleged ill-treatment while in detention.
Romeo was sold a year ago for £115,000 to an American who had already bought four of his foals.


Story from BBC NEWS:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/h...re/7228739.stm

Published: 2008/02/05 1558 GMT

© BBC MMVIII

__________________
Forum Admin

Blimey!!!!

It is a good way of laundering money though! Not that I keep it long enough for it to get dirty!

__________________
Horseybird; unpaid Horseball groom in Normandie.

Think this is the GG. Gorgeous isn't he?

http://www.parnellsirishcobs.com/romeo.htm

__________________
Forum Admin

Damned if they do and damned if they don't.

I use another horsey forum and read with tears in my eyes nearly every day of these horses being stolen in the UK. Coloured or 'gypsy' type horses are very stealable. There is one lady on there who had her beloved coloured cob stolen about a year ago and is still desperately searching for him. ~When the Anersham thing came to light she was desperate to know if her horse was there and then perhaps hoping he wasnt.

If this horse had been stolen then the Police would have been heros.

He is beautiful though. Lots of money he didnt earn!!! sods law

Gail

I can not see how they can say that they have lost that much money in stud fee's but there you go. No smoke without fire.

There were 2 attempts to steal Joe in the Uk, knowing how hard it is to track them down afterwards, I didn't just put a number on his back I PUT HIS NAME! It is down the line of his circingle so it doesn't show when he is driven. I would get gypsies pulling alongside me asking if he was for sale. In the end I put a sign on the back of my groom saying " no the pony isn't fo sale - and he is feezemaked", funnily enough it didn't happen again after that, but after the first attempt at the yard, where they were disturbed, I put a sign on the stable door staying that he was freezemarked, and identichipped and could easily be identified by the police. They came back a second time, ripped the sign from the door, and stole the trailer that they were going to take him away in instead! The trailer was later found in a raid at Sevenoaks.

I also marked his turnout rugs to the fact that he was freezemarked.

__________________
Horseybird; unpaid Horseball groom in Normandie.