Scales of Justice weigh up fate of Boxy the bull

After many hours of legal argument a High Court judge in London - who has the task of deciding what is to happen to the “much-loved” animal - reserved his judgment.

No date was given for Mr Justice McCombe’s ruling on the fight over the future of pedigree bull Hallmark Boxter, also known as Boxy, who faces being destroyed after testing positive for bovine TB.

Ken Jackson, of Forlorn Hope Farm in South Yorkshire, and his daughter Kate McNeil, dispute the validity of the TB test that condemned their “unique and irreplaceable” showground champion and want a re-test.

They are offering to pay for it themselves.

A positive blood sample was taken from the bull in April last year and officials of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) issued notices of intended slaughter, leading to a long-running legal battle to save his life.

Mr Jackson, whose farm is at Stubbs Walden, north of Doncaster, and humorously named after an old battle site, argues that 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 court.

But Julie Anderson, appearing for Defra, submitted that the bull poses a dangerous threat of spreading bovine TB and must be destroyed.

She argued that there was “no evidence whatsoever” the positive blood sample had been contaminated, and says it is too late to conduct an effective fresh test, and it is now impossible to prove the bull is free of TB.