Sheep case heads into preliminary inquiry phase

Wednesday, September 24, 2014

by JOE CALLAHAN

At a judicial pre-trial meeting last Thursday in Peterborough, dates were established for a preliminary inquiry into the Linda (Montana) Jones sheep trial case.

According to Alura Moores in Crown Attorney Damien Frost’s office, Justice Lorne Chester will preside over the inquiry scheduled to run from Feb. 17 to March 2 at provincial courts in Cobourg, Lindsay and Peterborough.

Jones, from Hastings in Northumberland County and Michael Schmidt from Durham County, along with Robert Pinnell of Grey County and Suzanne Atkinson in Northumberland County face charges of conspiracy to commit obstruction of a Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) officer, to transport or cause to transport an animal under quarantine, and conspiracy to defraud the public of a service over $5,000 under the Criminal Code.

Jones is also charged with obstructing a CFIA inspector under the Health of Animals Act and Pinnell faces a further charge of attempting to obstruct justice and another for obstructing a police officer, both under the Criminal Code.

The charges are connected with the disappearance in 2012 of sheep from Jones’ Northumberland County farm.

Prior to the livestock’s disappearance, Jones, a Shropshire sheep breeder, was embroiled in a dispute with the CFIA over its decision to quarantine her farm and destroy her flock following a positive test for scrapie, a federally reportable disease that is fatal to sheep and goats.

The missing sheep were recovered later on a farm in western Ontario.

The Law Society of Upper Canada says on its website that the purpose of preliminary inquiries is “to determine whether there is sufficient evidence to require a person charged with an indictable offence, to stand trial on that or any other indictable offence arising out of the same transaction.”
    
Scheduling the preliminary inquiry follows a June ruling by Judge Chester dismissing Crown Attorney Damien Frost’s application to have Jones’ and Schmidt’s lawyer, Shawn Buckley, removed as counsel for the co-accused because of his alleged conflict of interest.

The charges against Jones, Schmidt, Atkinson and Pinnell were first laid in December 2012. BF