Orcheston man fined for possessing air rifle despite ban

Michael Babey, of Whatcombe Brow in Orcheston, was caught with the weapon on July 1.

The 69-year-old is serving a suspended prison sentence for causing cattle to suffer in squalid conditions in Shrewton and breaching a disqualification order.

Suspended sentences prohibit people from having firearms or ammunition in their possession for five years under the Firearms Act.

Babey pleaded guilty to having the rifle at Salisbury Magistrates' Court on August 22. He was sentenced during the same hearing.

The court fined him £80. Magistrates also ordered him to pay £85 in costs to the Crown Prosecution Service and a £32 surcharge.

Babey was spared prison in April after he was found guilty of animal welfare offences involving cows, despite being banned from keeping them in 2019.

Cows were kept in heavily soiled conditions and their feeding area was covered in deep slurry and mud (Image: Wiltshire Council) He had been keeping cattle in poor conditions on Tanners Lane, leading to a mortality rate of 31 per cent – far higher than the national average.

One cow was seen licking an empty water container for five minutes when council officers and a government vet visited the half-acre site.

His wife Julie Babey admitted animal welfare offences and aiding and abetting her husband in breaching his disqualification order.

Babey was banned from keeping equine animals in 2010 after he committed similar offences on the same patch of land.