Second legal defeat over Beacons cull

Janet Hughes emerged from the High Court defiant

A teacher from mid Wales has said she will continue her fight to bring a legal challenge over the cull of healthy animals on the Brecon Beacons during last year's foot-and-mouth crisis.

On Wednesday environmental science teacher Janet Hughes, of Church Stoke in Powys, was refused permission at the Court of Appeal to appeal against an earlier High Court rejection of her bid to force the government to hold a judicial review into its handling of the crisis.

I am going to carry on or else all these would have been worthless

Janet Hughes

It was the second defeat in a legal battle begun last summer by Miss Hughes - who owns a smallholding in the rural Wales town.

Her case followed the Welsh Assembly's change of policy in the middle of last year's disease crisis which resulted in 6,000 hefted sheep on the Brecon Beacons being culled.

Originally the assembly decided not to carry out a contiguous cull on the hillsides because the sheep were hefted.

However, after the case in Cardiff she said that she was still determined not to give up the fight and would look at other ways of fighting the case.

"I am going to carry on or else all these would have been worthless.

"I still feel I can take this case further," she said.

Miss Hughes told the court that the many of the sheep did not have the "live virus" and that "all the pointers were there was no disease in the Beacons".

Testing is to be extended

She also argued that there were many "discrepancies" in the information given to Defra and the Welsh Assembly about the situation.

Refusing the application, Lord Justice Latham said that a more "detailed and thorough" investigation at the time may have determined whether the animals had the virus or not.

But added that while he had sympathy with Miss Hughes's argument there had not been time to carry out those sort of tests.

"It was an emergency situation. At the end of the day the conclusion may have shown to be too cautious.

"There is, however, no arguable case the direction taken was unlawful."

A total of 30,000 sheep were culled on the Beacons during the disease crisis. Seventy nine farms in Powys were affected by foot-and-mouth.

Almost 350,000 animals were slaughtered across Wales, as the disease swept from Anglesey south through Powys and onto farms in Monmouthshire.