Tuesday, April 01, 2008

Egg collecting

Todays fine for collecting/possessing 7000 rare birds eggs of 23 weeks in prison must be an April fool joke!
What are some judges/magistrates thinking of? It sends out the wrong message - 1 birds egg = approx 35 minutes locked up, when the law states that "The potential maximum fine for each wild bird's egg is £5,000 and/or six month's imprisonment." He should get 3500 years, or is it the more you collect the less the punishment? Am I missing something?
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5 comments:

darrell j prest said...

is it the longest sentence for a egg collector?

23 weeks is nearly 6 months

without going down the politics/crime road i would say it was a harsh outcome for the guy involved.

8:39 pm
Nick Carter said...

For further details see http://www.birdguides.com/webzine/article.asp?a=1301

9:43 pm
Andrew Huyton said...

I'm wiping my eyes in disbelief "a harsh out come for the guy involved"? I don't want any pity here but when I'm stuck with a solicitors bill for £6000, which should have been cleared by the £10k award to me by a employment tribunal BUT the company dissolves itself only to start up the next day under a different name. Yet this guy not ONLY has eggs but DEAD birds as well and his punishment is classed as HARSH. Please explain because I'm all ears. This guy should have received the maximum sentence available 6mths AND £5k fine end of story, and that would have been getting of lightly.

10:01 pm
Phil Wood said...

If the sentence is to be only 23 weeks, then perhaps it should be possible to make him serve it in 7 or 8 week chunks (early April to early June) over 3 years, thus preventing him doing any damage over 3 nesting seasons. Perhaps some sort of detnetion order lasting over many nesting seasons would prove a real deterrent?

9:58 pm
darrell j prest said...

better start saving andy thats a lot of money! put it down to a bad experience that life throws up now and again.
though im a birder its not the end of the world,we all like seeing rare birds

9:03 pm

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