A HORSE trader accused of cruelty today said he “totally disagrees” with evidence animals on his farm were starved.
James Gray, who owns Spindles Farm, Chalk Lane, Hyde Heath, asked why prosecutors at Bicester Magistrates Court had not produced pictures of allegedly emaciated animals taken on the day they were seized.
Mr Gray, 44, is charged with 12 counts under the Animal Welfare Act along with four other people, after more than 100 horses were seized from his farm last January.
The horse trader facing charges of animal cruelty said his animals were not suffering and claims the trial has ruined his business.
James Gray gave evidence for the first time this week and said that although his relatives were also charged with animal cruelty, he was the sole owner and had responsibility for the horses and land.
Gray, 45, said a police statement he gave in April last year which indicated his wife and two daughters, plus another teenage boy, were involved in the care of the equines, was given when he was ‘on strong medication’.
He said: “I was not very well at all. I was confined to Harlow House in High Wycombe. They wanted to section me. My wife didn’t care for them, she is frightened of horses.
James Gray told a court yesterday that it was common for horses to “drop down dead”.
Gray, 45, of Spindle Farm, Hyde Heath, Buckinghamshire, said some of the animals found on his land had died without warning or displaying any sign of illness.
And he said some corpses, which were left lying on his property for several days, were “family pets” which he was waiting to bury.
The James Gray trial is being held at Bicester Magistrates’ Court, in Oxfordshire. He is being tried alongside his wife Julie Gray, 41, his daughters Jodie Gray, 26, and Cordelia Gray, 20, and another person who cannot be named.
A HORSE trader accused of animal cruelty told a court today none of the animals found dead at his farm had shown signs of being “depressed or ill” before their deaths.
James Gray, the owner of Spindles Farm in Chalk Lane, Hyde Heath, said he had never experienced a loss of animals like the one he had before an RSPCA inspection of the farm in January last year.
The 44-year-old said he had sole responsibility for the welfare of the horses, donkeys and ponies – and told Bicester Magistrates’ Court two of his co-accused are “frightened” of the animals.
COURT was today told hundreds of horses had to be removed from a farm after “overwhelming evidence of unreasonable suffering” was discovered there.
An expert witness in the trial of five people accused of mistreating horses at Spindles Farm, Chalk Lane, Hyde Heath, was grilled for a second day by defence counsel.
All five defendants were at Bicester Magistrates Court today to hear Veterinary expert Peter Green dismiss claims more than 100 horses could have been treated on the farm on the weekend of January 4 and 5 last year.
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