A POULTRY fancier returned to claim birds he believed were rightfully his -- 15 years after leaving them with someone else.

Blackburn magistrates heard the bizarre tale of how Michael Richards removed two hens, a cockerel and four chicks from a shed belonging to a 78-year-old woman.

And police who eventually tracked him down charged Richards with burglary and theft.

Richards, 38, of Brownlow Street, Clitheroe, pleaded guilty to burglary at a cottage in West Bradford.

He was given a conditional discharge for 12 months and ordered to pay £80 costs.

Prosecutor Scott Ainge said the victim was Daphne McAlpine who, 15 years earlier, had entered into an agreement with Richards to let him keep some of his birds on her land.

On June 6 this year, Mrs McAlpine fed her birds and shut them in the hen house.

The following morning she realised some were missing and contacted the police.

After he had been arrested, Richards said he had knocked on the door of the cottage and, when he did not get a reply, took the birds from the shed.

"He said he thought the birds were rightfully his, although they clearly weren't the ones he had left 15 years earlier," said Mr Ainge.

"He showed police where the birds were being kept and they were returned unharmed to Mrs McAlpine."

Andrew Church-Taylor, defending, said Richards had left a cockerel and two or three Old English Game hens at Mrs McAlpine's farm all those years ago.

"He did not return until June of this year when he decided to go back and collect what he saw as his birds," said Mr Church-Taylor. "The original birds were long gone but he saw it as his right to take some of their descendants, feeling they were partly his."