THE case of a Dales farmer ordered to repay £30,000-worth of sheep subsidies reinforced the need for flexibility in agricultural policy, community and political leaders said this week.

Tom Kitching, who farms 300 ewes at Lunds, above Hawes, was shocked to receive a demand for the cash from the Government's Rural Payments Agency, because officials said his documentation was incomplete.

Now Richmond MP William Hague has taken up Mr Kitching's case and has vowed to strongly urge ministers to treat him as an exception.

Mr Kitching, 65, who has worked the farm alone since the death of his 87-year-old mother more than a year ago, has also won the sympathy of local people, who fear the demand will force him out of business.

His problems began when his mother, Agnes Kitching, who did her son's paperwork, fell ill with kidney cancer and he struggled to cope with her illness, running the farm and completing documentation.

A non-driver, he relied on friends for lifts to Lancaster hospital to visit her until she died.

Less than four months later, in April last year, an inspector from the Rural Payments Agency (part of Defra) visited the farm and pointed out that the farmer had failed to record fallen stock.

Mr Kitching, a bachelor who has run the hill farm for 44 years, told him that the records were with his accountant.

He heard nothing more from the agency and, in November, when neighbouring farmers had received payments and he had not, he contacted the agency to find out why.

He was told that he would receive nothing that year under the EU-backed sheep subsidy scheme because his documentation was incomplete - and he was ordered to repay the previous four years' subsidies.

The agency refused to look at a retrospective claim when the missing records were located and a subsequent appeal failed.

Mr Hague, who met Mr Kitching and some of his supporters last Friday, was sympathetic and vowed to take up the case on the farmer's behalf.

"I have every sympathy with Mr Kitching because of his personal circumstances," said Mr Hague. "I am taking this up with Ministers at Defra. This will be a difficult matter, because his appeal has already been turned down but I will do my best."

Maurice Hall, manager of Hawes auction mart, who helped Mr Kitching prepare his figures for the retrospective claim, also called for some flexibility in policy regulations.

"I feel very sorry for this man; he has lost his mother, he lives alone, he doesn't drive and he is in a very awkward situation. If it had been someone trying to work the system or defraud the Government, I would have supported a demand for repayment, but in a genuine case of being overwhelmed by the system and its bureaucracy in very difficult circumstances, it is wrong to pick on this man.

"These subsidy payments are actually what hill farming is about; if he has to pay back the money it could well finish off the farm, which can't be what the CAP is about, surely. Even a compromise would have been helpful."

A spokesman for the Rural Payments Agency would not discuss individual cases but said much of the documentation which backed a claim was aimed at animal health and welfare. There was very little leeway for exceptions.

"We do have a customer complaints unit, which is independent of operational areas, and we are willing to look at complaints we receive about the administration of the scheme and decisions which have been made," she said.

"If we don't apply the regulations correctly, there are financial penalties to be paid by the UK taxpayer."