Farmer ignored rules protecting cattle from TB

A FARMER has been ordered to pay nearly £11,000 after repeatedly breaching the rules designed to protect animals from tuberculosis.

- By TOM MACK

John Hawley, of Six Hills Farm, near Melton, has been farming for 50 years and specialises in buying cattle from farms and markets, fattening them up and then selling them on to slaughterhouses.

However, in May 2024, the government's Animal and Plant Health Agency reported Hawley to Leicestershire Trading Standards for breaking laws under the Cattle Identification Regulations 2007.

Trading standards officers started monitoring Hawley's cattle movements and discovered “systematic noncompliance” of the rules, despite formal warning letters he had received in the past.

In a period from late January 2025 to May 2025, he failed to promptly notify the authorities about 235 out of 279 cattle he moved off his farm, and also failed to report about 75 of nearly 100 animals moved on to the farm.