Army fraud vet goes to prison

Army helicopters were blamed for animal deaths

A disgraced veterinary surgeon has begun a 15-month jail sentence for plotting with border farmers to defraud the Ministry of Defence of more than £100,000.

At the centre of the scam were a series fraudulent claims for animals allegedly so traumatised by low flying army helicopters in south Armagh that they were driven to their deaths.

Downpatrick Crown Court, sitting in Belfast, heard that the vet, Seamus Fegan, 41, from Burren near Warrenpoint, County Down, faced being struck off by his professional body.

After a five-month trial, which ended in February, Fegan was convicted by majority verdicts of 31 charges of conspiracy to defraud the MoD.

It was the longest trial in Northern Ireland's legal history.

Friend testified

Before being sentenced on Tuesday, he asked for a further 13 charges to be taken into account, in a case which has already cost the taxpaper more than £6m.

Among those in court to give evidence on his behalf was his life-long friend, television personality Frank Mitchell, who said Fegan had been a respected member of the Burren community who were shocked at his downfall.

However, the court also heard that such was the esteem in which Fegan was held that his community had guaranteed to pay back more than £14,000 in fees he received as part of the fraud and which the court ordered he repay by way of compensation.

Defence QC Eugene Grant claimed Fegan became trapped in a web in which he was not the main benificiary.

He said that "a once great man" had been reduced by mental and physical deterioration to become an alcoholic with suicidal thoughts aggrivated by hypertension and depression.

Fegan and his family, he added, now survived on family income support and drove a car valued at less than £100 because he had "stepped over the line".