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Reports of illegal sheep butchery have ramped up in Northamptonshire as another farmer has told of his loss of at least 26 ewes and lambs.

Patrick Green of Church Farm, Harpole, was contacted by police officers in the early hours of Friday August 30 after they found about 26 of his lambs and New Zealand Suffolk x Mule breeding ewes illegally slaughtered overnight in a field off Roman Road and Sandy Lane, between Dunston and Harpole.

The third generation farmer, who has been breeding to improve his flock for the past five years, said: “I feel empty.

“We rely entirely on our income from the sheep and what I have been breeding for the past five years means I have made progress for the ideal, healthy animal, one that is welfare-friendly and easy to produce and rear.