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More Guilty on the Holkham Estate in Norfolk

Viscount Coke (34) son of the Earl of Leicester, threatened to sue the police and Crown Prosecution Service after being cleared of allowing a gamekeeper to illegally use poison on the family's Norfolk estate.

The heir to the Holkham estate near Wells-next-the-Sea, had faced 12 charges following the conviction in March this year of one of the estate's gamekeepers, who admitted killing a kestrel with a poisoned pheasant carcass. However, on 15/6/00 magistrates at Fakenham, said Viscount Coke had no case to answer.

Land agent Richard Gledson (37) and head gamekeeper John King (62) had all denied charges relating to food and environment protection legislation, and pesticide regulations. Gledson and King were each convicted of three charges of allowing a gamekeeper on the 25,000-acre estate illegally to store poison and were fined £1,200 and £750 respectively.

In March Martin Joyce, a gamekeeper was fined £850 for the killing of three kestrels on Holkham Estate in Norfolk. He admitted to shooting two birds and poisoning a third because he blamed them for attacking young partridges.