Three animal rights activists sentenced to unpaid work for theft of King’s lambs
The trio wore pink Animal Rising T-shirts as they took the sheep from a field at Appleton Farm in Norfolk on May 24 2023.
Three animal rights activists who were found guilty of the theft of three lambs from the King’s Sandringham Estate have each been sentenced to carry out 150 hours of unpaid work.
Listen to this article
Rosa Sharkey and Sarah Foy, both aged 26, and Rose Patterson, 37, had said in a prepared statement given to police that they believed Charles “would have consented to the lambs’ rescue”.
They argued they had not acted dishonestly, but jurors found them guilty of theft following a trial and three hours and 48 minutes of deliberations at Norwich Crown Court.
The women maintain that they acted because they believed rescuing the lambs was the morally and lawfully right thing to do, giving them the chance of safety and a long life rather than seeing them sent to slaughter.
They were each sentenced to 12-month community orders with 150 hours of unpaid work and ordered to pay £250 each towards prosecution costs.
The trio wore pink Animal Rising T-shirts as they took the sheep from a field at Appleton Farm in Norfolk on May 24 2023.
Read more: King visits Aberdeenshire in first public outing since Earl Spencer bombshell memoir published
The animals were taken to a sanctuary in a van by a fourth person, who was not on trial and was named in court by Patterson only as “Ben”.
The following day the three women went to Windsor Castle to try to tell police there what they had done.
They went to Windsor police station after armed officers outside the royal residence did not engage with them.
The judge, Anthony Bate, said after the guilty verdicts were returned on Thursday: “I have in mind a community order and some unpaid work.”
The court reconvened later Thursday afternoon for the judge to pass sentence, after the defendants spoke with a probation service worker who assessed them all as suitable for unpaid work.
The judge said, as he passed sentence, that the jury found by their guilty verdicts that the defendants “did steal the sheep on the occasion in question, sincere though their motives were”.
He described the three women as “to various degrees seasoned campaigners”.
“They are all, may I say so, intelligent and capable women who can make a valuable contribution to society through these means (the unpaid work),” he said.
There had been hugs with supporters in the public gallery as the defendants left the courtroom after the guilty verdicts were earlier returned.
Sharkey, of Brighton; Foy, of Alfreton, Derbyshire; and Patterson, who said she lives in London; had pleaded not guilty to the theft of the sheep.
Dingle Clark, prosecuting, said in his closing speech it was an “obvious nonsense that the owner would have consented” to the lambs being taken.
He said: “The prosecution say this was plainly dishonest.
“The reason why it was dishonest is they were taking something which didn’t belong to them.
“They had to put a door over a fence and they did it… to publicise their views.”
He said that all three women had previous convictions, with Patterson having three convictions related to public order, Foy with two convictions and Sharkey with six convictions including one related to a protest at the Grand National meeting at Aintree.
Animal Rising director Patterson, who was one of the defendants, said after they were found guilty: “We are, of course, disappointed by the verdict today, but it doesn’t change how I feel about rescuing Sammy, Sunny and Sooty.
“We rescued them because we believed they deserved the chance of a long life, rather than having their lives cut short simply because they were being farmed for food.
“I don’t regret for a moment giving them that chance.”