A MAPPLEBOROUGH Green farmer has been prosecuted by Warwickshire County Council trading standards for causing unnecessary suffering to a cow which was unable to support its own body weight.

Peter Amor, of Henley Road, was given a conditional discharge and ordered to pay £11,270 prosecution costs for failing to seek veterinary care for the animal, which was found by trading standards animal health officers on land at Wootton Wawen on February 23.

Stratford Magistrates Court heard the 10-month old animal had deformed front legs, with the lower portion of the left foreleg missing and the right foreleg unnaturally bowed.

Officers contacted Mr Amor later that day and the animal was destroyed. But the court also heard the head and guts of the animal, which could potentially carry BSE, were not disposed of properly.

Mr Amor was prosecuted under the Animal By-Products Regulations 2003 for this offence.

In his defence, counsel for Mr Amor called their own veterinary experts who gave evidence the animal had not suffered unnecessarily.

Mr Amor's defence counsel said the beast was being reared "for the freezer" and would have been put down at about a year old.

His counsel said the "ordinary, careful, reasonably humane farmer" would not have regarded it as necessary to put it down until around that time.

After the case heard on April 22, trading standards director Noel Hunter said: "Our Animal Health officers work very hard to support Warwickshire's farming community and give farmers the best possible help and advice.

"However, causing unnecessary suffering to an animal and not disposing properly of animal by-products are serious offences and under those circumstances, we will take action."