Hampshire man dumped 50 dead hares and two rare birds in ‘horror movie scene’, court hears

A Hampshire man dumped the bodies of 50 hares outside a village shop before smearing the blood of one across the store front, a court has been told.

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.

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

Adam Cooper, prosecuting, 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 Crown says one of those two men is James Kempster.”

Mr Cooper added that one of the men then “tears or rips the body of one of the hares in half, blood is dripping on the floor, wipes the shop front, smearing the blood”.

He then takes 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.

The prosecutor said DNA discovered on the dead birds was matched to the defendant 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.

He added that the motive for the incident was unknown and said: “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.

Proceeding