Farmer wins right to challenge bull's slaughter

Ken Jackson, of Forlorn Hope Farm, said it was "absolutely brilliant" after a judge gave them the go-ahead to make one last attempt to save the life of Hallmark Boxter, also known as "Boxy".

The farmer disputes the validity of the TB test that condemned his "unique and irreplaceable" showground champion and has been fighting over several months for a re-test, offering personally to pay for it.

A positive blood sample was taken from the bull in April last year and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) ordered him to be slaughtered.

Mr Jackson, whose farm is at Stubbs Walden, north of Doncaster, and humorously named after an old battle site, argues the officers who took the sample mixed two half-full vials in the field, contrary to written procedures. He wants the positive test declared null and void by the courts.

On Wednesday, Deputy High Court judge Rabinder Singh QC ruled the farmer had "an arguable case" and ordered that his bid to overturn the bull's death sentence should be heard at the court as a matter of urgency.

The judge said: "This bull is a much-loved animal. He is a prize animal and it would appear that his value to these claimants is not simply to be assessed in monetary terms".

Julie Anderson, who represented Defra in court, told the judge the department was "unhappy and concerned" that the bull had still not been slaughtered as he posed a disease threat. Ms Anderson argued "there was no evidence whatsoever" that the positive blood sample had been contaminated.

She said Defra was not being "high-handed", but it was now "far too late" to conduct an effective fresh test and it was impossible to prove the bull was free of TB.

The TB alert on Forlorn Hope farm arose early last year after a bought-in beef heifer was found to be a carrier. The vets then condemned six more animals, including the bull, because there were grounds for suspicion that they, too, had been exposed. The High Court heard there was currently no evidence of bTB in the rest of Mr Jackson's herd.