Man ‘dumped 50 dead hares outside shop and smeared blood across the storefront’

A man dumped the bodies of 50 hares outside a village shop and smeared the blood of one across a sleepy village storefront, a court has heard.

James Kempster, 39, of Totton, Southampton, is on trial at Southampton Magistrates’ Court charged with two counts of possessing a dead bird under the Wildlife and Countryside Act and a charge of criminal damage to the shop front.

He also allegedly stuffed a dead kestrel and a barn owl under the door handles in a ‘horror movie scene’.

The court heard the incident was caught on CCTV outside Broughton Community Shop in the early hours of March 15, 2024.

Prosecutor Adam Cooper said: ‘This is a horror movie scene outside a Broughton village shop, it’s a small Hampshire village.

‘In the middle of the night, at 3.23am, three men arrived outside the shop by car, the driver remains in the car, having manoeuvred it to a position so the boot is adjacent to the forecourt, two men get out.

‘They are both dressed in tracksuits, hoods up, balaclavas covering their faces so neither can be identified. They get out to discard the bodies of 50 dead hares over the forecourt, strewn about deliberately to maximise their coverage.’

The prosecution alleges that one of the men who dumped the bodies is Kempster.

Harrowing footage showed one of the men ‘tearing or ripping’ the body of one of the hares in half, blood is dripping on the floor, wiping the shop front, smearing the blood.’

Kempster is then accused of taking two birds, a barn owl and a kestrel, from the car before wiping them in the blood and ‘stuffing’ them under the door handles, the prosecutor said.

Mr Cooper added that the man ‘then beckons the car to show the driver their handiwork, gets into the car and leaves’.

The prosecutor said DNA discovered on the dead birds was matched to the Kempster, who was also linked to the incident through his mobile phone location, his clothing and connections to the car, which was found burned out in a country lane.

The court heard that the motive for the incident was unknown, but prosecutor Cooper added: ‘To find him guilty, we do not need to know why, and it may be that we do not get to understand why.’

Kempster denies the charges, and the trial continues.

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