A FARMER has been given a two-year conditional discharge and ordered to pay prosecution costs of £459 after 68 sheep carcasses were found on his land at Hollin Lane, Rossendale.

Laurence Suthers, 57, pleaded guilty to 49 offences of failing to dispose of sheep carcasses following a visit to his land by County Council Animal Health and Welfare Inspectors in January this year.

Rossendale magistrates were told that decomposing carcasses can spread disease to other farm animals as well as scavengers such as foxes and rodents.

Rotting carcasses also pose a risk of contamination to the watercourse. In this case, carcasses were discovered in various states of decay - some had been partially eaten whilst others had been found lying in a nearby stream.

On behalf of Suthers the court was told that about two-thirds of the carcasses were not his, the animals having strayed onto his land from a nearby farm.

He accepted that he should have arranged for their disposal earlier but had not done so due to financial pressures and recent ill-health.

Sentencing Suthers, magistrates recognised that this was his first offence and gave him credit for his early guilty plea.