A Co Cork father and son have pleaded not guilty to charges of attempting to defraud the Department of Agriculture of £75,000 by introducing a BSE-infected cow to a herd with the intention of obtaining depopulation compensation.
Andrew and Bryan Wilson, of Bandon and Dunmanway, Co Cork, deny purchasing a BSE-infected animal and placing it in the herd of a farmer, Mr James Sutton, at Kilgariffe, Co Cork, on September 29th, 1996.
The two men are accused of removing a tag from a healthy cow in Mr Sutton's herd and placing it on a BSE-infected cow with a view to having the cattle on the land destroyed in order to receive State compensation.
Cork Circuit Criminal Court was told that the men allegedly sought to boost the herd by up to 60 additional cattle in an attempt to increase profits from a compensation claim.
The alleged fraud raised the suspicions of a vet who was called in to inspect the BSE-infected animal.
Department of Agriculture officials noted that the animal had no horns. However, identification papers for the animal in question showed that it had a full set of horns when it was examined a year previously.
Further examination was carried out on the infected animal, which was found to have a fresh piece of animal flesh in the barrel of the ear tag.
A small piece of flesh would normally be punched out by the insertion of the tag. However, cows are tagged after birth, and the piece of flesh should have been highly degraded after five years.
Opening the case for the State, Mr John Edwards SC said that the alleged intention of the men was to maximise the compensation which could be claimed by increasing the size of Mr Sutton's herd.
The farmer's herd, counsel said, would normally have been in the region of 45-60 cows.
Mr Edwards told the jury not to be intimidated by the 98 charges facing the men. He went on to explain that the alleged offences could be broken down into seven different categories, including 38 individual charges of unlawful movement of an animal, charges concerning the removal of tags and charges relating to the alleged conspiracy to defraud.
A jury was sworn in yesterday to hear the case, which is expected to take up to two weeks to conclude.