A NEW Government scheme to collect dead animals from farmers has been criticised after a couple received a legal bill for more than £1,400.

Alistair Nicholson, 61 and his wife Elizabeth, 60, who run Stud Farm at Littlethorpe, near Ripon, were taken to Harrogate Magistrates Court by North Yorkshire trading standards officers after complaints about rotting animal carcasses.

They each pleaded guilty to failing to dispose of cattle and pig carcasses by sending them to an incineration or processing plant. Andy Robson, prosecuting, said animal health inspectors went to the farm on August 1 last year, about a month after new rules prohibiting burial came into force.

They found an open pit containing the carcasses. Mrs Nicholson told the court the couple's JCB had broken down so they had been unable to cover the animals with soil.

Her husband said he normally worked a 70-hour week but at the time the farm's cowman was on holiday and he was working longer. He said: "I forgot to put soil on top of them in a deep pit. The legislation came in last July. Up to then you were allowed to bury and we always did that. After the visit we got rid of them within a week."

Nicholson said he and a number of other farmers had signed up to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs scheme to collect carcasses, but it was still not operating.

He said: "It is not up and running yet, though it has been promised for over a year." The couple were fined £400 each with costs of £617.