A vegan activist who stole a lamb from a farm and almost killed it with her botched attempts to hand-rear it has been banned from owning sheep. The Telegraph has the story.
Louise Murguia, 49, kidnapped the animal from a field because she thought it was injured and in distress and she could take better care of it.
She took it home where she shampooed it to remove the identifying number on its fleece and fed it cow’s milk and a formula feed she bought from Amazon.
The animal was confined in her house for three weeks before police attended the property and found it was malnourished.
The lamb belonged to Stuart Ludwell of Hile Farm in Sturminster Newton, Dorset.
One of his ewes had died suddenly the night before the theft, leaving two lambs orphaned.
As it was dark, Mr Ludwell decided to wait until morning to retrieve them so as not to distress the other ewes and newborns by chasing them.
But when he returned to the field with his wife and two children, they could only find one lamb and assumed the other must have been taken by a fox.
It was not until three weeks later that he received a tip-off that the lamb had in fact been taken by Murguia who lives nearby and walks her dog in the area.
She later told police she had taken the lamb because it appeared to have a broken leg and she thought it wouldn’t survive the night.
But she did not seek medical treatment for it and simply made a splint for its leg herself.
When it was recovered by police, the stolen lamb weighed just 5.8 kg, while the other lamb that was hand-reared by the Ludwell family was 9.95 kg.
Murguia posted on Facebook at the time: “I am a vegan, hate me if you like. I love and respect animals.” …
Recorder Nicholas Haggan KC sentenced Murguia to a 12-month community order with a six-month alcohol treatment requirement and six rehabilitation activity days.
He also made an indefinite restraining order preventing Murguia from contacting Mr Ludwell, going to his farm or feeding any livestock within two miles of it, and banned her from keeping or owning sheep indefinitely.
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