A smallholder who failed to get treatment for an injured ram has been banned from keeping any farm animals.

John Charles (63) from Norton Lane, Tidbury Green, Solihull, who kept 129 sheep on land at Preston Bagot, failed to take reasonable steps to help the ram who had an injured foreleg, an appeal at Warwick Crown Court was told.

He was banned from keeping farm animals under the Animal Welfare Act.

Judge Marten Coates also rejected a plea to relax the order to allow Charles to work with animals for someone else.

Having lost the appeal, Charles will also have to pay £1,382 in costs imposed after he failed to appear at court when the case was listed on an earlier occasion.

Prosecuting, Richard Dewsbury said the Jacob’s ram had received an injury to its front legs which had impaired its ability to walk and bear its weight on its front legs.

Warwickshire County Council animal health and welfare officers visited Preston Fields, Preston Bagot, with a Government vet in March and saw the ram hobbling round a pen on its front knees.

“It was also observed to be in relatively poor bodily condition, thin and under-nourished.”

Charles was told the ram needed veterinary treatment or that it should be humanely destroyed.

Mr Dewsbury said: “It is the Crown’s case that this animal had not been treated properly from the time its problem developed.  It was a problem Mr Charles must have recognised.”