Man fined over noisy cock crowing

Noisy Leo upset the neighbours with his dawn chorus

A former farm worker who failed to keep his cockerel quiet has been fined £175 with £75 costs for breaching a noise abatement order for a second time.

Colin Hill, 37, from East Farndon, Northamptonshire, was told by a district judge to stop his prize bird Leo from crowing at the crack of dawn.

Market Harborough Magistrates Court heard Mr Hill's bird Leo continually annoyed his next door neighbour.

He failed to obey a noise abatement order from Daventry District Council.

He received the order in the previous June, but had failed to ensure Leo kept to its conditions.

He had previously been fined for the same offence two months earlier.

The unemployed former agricultural worker represented himself at the hearing.

Neighbour Josephine Bennett, a widowed farmer's wife, told the hearing: "The point is I want my bedroom windows open because it is too hot in the summer."

Blamed another bird

Mrs Bennett, who has lived on the estate for 11 years, said her work as a childminder was being affected because she was constantly tired and unable to rest because of Leo.

Mr Hill, who said he keeps Leo and a number of hens as a hobby, denied the charge.

He said he had done "everything possible" to stop the bird crowing.

To silence the bird he had left him in a shed at the bottom of the garden and patched up any holes which could let in light.

He also claimed Leo was not responsible for the noise, alleging the culprit could be a cockerel kept by another resident on the estate where he lived.

"You can't possibly blame my cockerel when the neighbour has got a cockerel and it might have been his," he said.

Deputy district judge Bal Dhaliwal rejected Hill's defence and said: "I do not find that you have any reasonable excuse to put before me and therefore you are guilty."