Aristocrat fined £15,000 after cows trample dog walkers leaving them fearing for their lives
9 June 2023, 12:26
A landowner has been fined £15,000 after his cows launched a "frenzied and intense attack" on dog walkers.
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Sir Charles Hobhouse admitted two health and safety failures at his estate in Monkton Farleigh, Wilshire, after 17 cattle and 18 calves trampled walkers twice in 2021.
They were on a public path that was not fully separated from the animals by electric fencing.
Joanne Booley was left with a fractured shoulder and possible broken ribs during the first incident in June 5 2021.
Michael, her 57-year-old husband who was an officer in the British Army, said his post-traumatic stress disorder was made worse by what he called a "frenzied and intense attack".
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"I witnessed my wife being relentlessly stamped on and headbutted by the cows and at one stage she was not responding," he said.
"I also witnessed my friend desperately trying to find cover behind a tree and fighting the attacking cows with her rucksack as they attacked her from both sides.
"I still have nightmares about it."
Two months after that incident, the cows attacked 42-year-old James Johnson as he walked his dog.
He suffered a fractured spine and believed he would be killed. He released his dog and ran, but the cows crashed into him, knocked him to the ground and trampled and headbutted him.
"Every time I attempted to get back up, they pushed me back down," the builder said.
"Near the end, when I was exhausted and hurt, I fell to the ground one more time and remember thinking, 'This is it — this is where I die'."
Hobhouse, 60, a baronet and former high sheriff, admitted the failings at a previous hearing, which was told he did not take adequate steps to stop the cows.
The Health and Safety Executive had advised him to put a fence around the footpath or get rid of the walking route altogether after the first attack.
However, the second attack happened when Mr Johnson walked through a different field, on an unfenced path.
The judge in the hearing, Mr Justice Saini, accepted the aristocrat was not aware that the cows had been moved into that field.
The former Etonian was fined £15,000 and told to pay £8,000 costs at Bristol Crown Court.
His defence lawyer, Malcolm Galloway, said Hobhouse took responsibility for what happens on the estate and took the attacks personally.
