Reporter pleads guilty in sheep abduction case

by JOE CALLAHAN & BETTER FARMING STAFF

Suzanne Atkinson, one of four accused in a high-profile sheep abduction case, pleaded guilty to the transport of quarantined animals without a licence, in the Ontario Court of Justice in Peterborough, on Monday. Maximum penalty is a $50,000 fine or six months imprisonment – or both.

Atkinson still faces one charge of obstructing an inspector under the Health of Animals Act and three charges under the Criminal Code of Canada:  

• Conspiracy to commit obstruction of a Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) officer.
• Conspiracy to transport or cause to transport an animal under quarantine
• Conspiracy to defraud the public of a service over $5,000

Atkinson, 54, a dairy farmer in Warkworth and a reporter for the weekly Ontario Farmer, pleaded guilty before Judge Robert Beninger after key evidence from a Statement of Agreed Facts she signed with the Crown prosecutor, was read into the record in open court.

Following the appearance both Atkinson and Debra Rosenberg, an agent for the Public Prosecution Service of Canada declined comment.

Grey county raw milk activist Michael Schmidt, 60; sheep owner Linda Francis Jones (aka Montana Jones), 56, Hastings and Robert Pinnell, retired, 48, Grey County; also face charges in the case.

According to the Statement of Facts, Jones’ farm was under CFIA quarantine for scrapie when 31sheep scheduled for euthanasia disappeared.  

Scrapie is a reportable disease that affects the central nervous system of sheep and goats and belongs to the transmissible spongiform encephalopathy disease family. The government has been trying to eradicate scrapie since 1945.

The statement claims Atkinson, and others discussed plans to spirit away Jones’ sheep while attending the Practical Farmers of Ontario inaugural meeting on March 31, 2012. Soon after, Atkinson phoned others to appeal for help in removing the sheep from the farm, but found no takers.

Atkinson’s statement also claims Ontario Farmer columnist Ian Cumming was present at a meeting at Jones’ farm as plans were being discussed, as was Ontario Landowners Association president Tom Black, and both had advised against the plans.

Cumming confirmed his presence to Better Farming, noting he was one of the featured speakers at the Practical Farmers’ meeting. “I’d gone up with a van full of people and returned with a van full of people from eastern Ontario for that (PFO) meeting,” he says of his presence afterwards at the farm. “It was on the way home.”

The quarantine and the agency’s proposal to destroy the animals had received publicity, he observed. “It was in the news, so curiosity, in we go,” he says. “Suzanne happened to be tagging along or something as well. But she, I guess, had other things in her mind.”

He says he has reviewed Atkinson’s statement and “what it states there is exactly what went on,” he says. “As it says in the Statement of Facts, I think myself and Tom Black said this wasn’t a good idea.”

Cumming says that he gave a statement to the CFIA of what went on that day and there were no charges against him.

He says CFIA knew he was there that day. “I didn’t divulge that information, it was told to them obviously through Suzanne or someone.”

photo: Tom Black

Tom Black remembers the day a little differently.

“Suzanne asked us to go down and talk to Montana and see if the Landowners could help her with anything,” he says. He notes members from the local landowners association had been involved in protests about the situation.

Black says he only heard hints about the possibility of the sheep being moved and no conclusive decision was made.

“I said we wouldn’t” support the plan, he says, noting taking the sheep would have meant getting “into criminal territory.”

He says he and members of the organization would have been willing to block the farm’s gate and demand payment from the government to compensate Jones for the loss of the sheep. “That’s just straight theft, unless you come with compensation for the good of the country because that’s why they say they’re doing this thing,” he says.

Black says he is a sheep farmer, so he is familiar with scrapie. It’s a naturally occurring disease, he says, that does not pose a threat to human health and is not deserving of the types of control measures CFIA has imposed.

“The real story is in the mess they (the agency) made of that case.” Black says he made a statement to CFIA in the fall of 2013.

Black says, “I was expecting to get a call back” to demonstrate. “But I didn’t get any call, then I heard they’d disappeared.

 “That was completely a shock to me, learning (Suzanne) was involved, but she seems to have confessed to it, so I guess she was… It was really too obvious — her being there, and her not living too far away and all that kind of stuff. It was too easy to connect those dots, I’d say. And she’s a very well known lady in the agricultural papers.”

Atkinson’s Agreed Statement claims she corresponded with others via text message to arrange removal of the sheep.

It says at 11 p.m. on March 31, 2012, two trucks arrived at Atkinson’s farm carrying a total of 31 sheep. “The sheep were placed in a barn on the property separate from the other livestock,” the statement says. “No other sheep were present on the farm.”

Atkinson claims she was asked to spray paint a message at Jones’ farm but declined to do so.

The statement says the sheep were subsequently removed from Atkinson’s farm on April 1. The next day, she arrived at the Jones farm to report for Ontario Farmer on the sheep’s disappearance and photographed a note signed “Farmers Peace Corp,” claiming to have taken the sheep.

That same day, the statement says, the Ontario Provincial Police commenced an investigation into the disappearance of the sheep.

More than two months later, 26 of the sheep were found on a farm south of Owen Sound. “Only eleven (11) of those sheep could be identified as the remaining animals had their identification marks removed,” the statement says. That location was subsequently quarantined by the CFIA and decontaminated by the farm owner.

A CFIA quarantine remains in effect on a large area on the property of another Grey County farmer.

On Sept. 12, 2012, three more sheep were found abandoned in a crate beside Trafalgar Road near Erin. The statement says a note attached to the crate identified the sheep as having come from Jones’ farm.

Cumming says Atkinson’s statement does not clearly indicate whether the agency found all of the missing sheep or conclusively identified they originated from Jones’ farm. He wants to know if the DNA from the sheep that were missing matches that of the sheep that were found. He says he raised the point when CFIA questioned him, noting that if the agency has determined a DNA match, “’it’s an open and shut case. And ‘if you don’t, ‘I said, I have one of the stories of the decade on your massive incompetence.’

“I’m cynical about them,” he adds. “There is a lot of incompetence there. They were more embarrassed by this than anything else.

He says the amount the agency was offering Jones as compensation per animal was only comparable to what an old ewe would get at a sale barn.

“I’m also cynical about scrapie,” he says, noting a family member raises sheep in the United Kingdom. “Scrapie is just something that is. And it hasn’t killed a single person in the world that anybody’s ever documented and to me it’s something that you have to live with. And to say you want to eradicate it is fine, but I don’t see every sheep in the country getting tested too. So it’s a little bit of a joke. So I have mixed feelings on that.”

Cumming says Atkinson “is a wonderful person as far as I am concerned.” He says she got caught in the middle of something “and maybe the judgement was bad. And I think as a journalist, lots of times I’m involved in something but I don’t write about it.” He adds: “And to be honest when all the stories were circulating about it and you’re sitting there as a journalist and know pretty accurately what happened but I didn’t write about it, do you know what I mean? I wasn’t involved but you know, it was a conflict of interest for me and I think that’s the mistake Suzanne made as well.”

He says he wouldn’t be surprised if he were called as a witness but to date no one has asked him.

Paul Mahon, publisher and editor-in-chief at Ontario Farmer won’t comment until Atkinson’s sentencing hearing, which he says he may attend.

Mahon says he hasn’t given much thought to the Health of Animals Act. “Legislation is legislation, right. We don’t make it; we just follow it.”

Mahon declined to comment on Atkinson’s future at the farm publication until after her sentencing hearing, scheduled for Jan. 30 in Peterborough.

Shawn Buckley, the lawyer who represents both Jones and Schmidt, says he has not read Atkinson’s statement. “There’s just no advantage for anyone, for us responding to some alleged facts put down on paper that likely will have no bearing at all on the trial. I don’t expect a jury would ever see those; I don’t think they would be allowed to.”

Jones’ and Schmidt’s cases have been adjourned to Dec. 23, in Peterborough for a further judicial pre-trial with Judge Beninger to resolve outstanding issues related to the conduct of a preliminary hearing which is scheduled for Feb. 17 in Cobourg.

Pinnell, who is representing himself, is also scheduled to appear at the Feb. 17 preliminary hearing. BF