Farmer fined after Midlands holidaymaker suffers broken ribs in cow attack
A holidaymaker suffered six broken ribs and injuries to his lungs and spleen when he was thrown 8ft in the air and trampled repeatedly by a cow.
A farmer has been ordered to pay more than £3,500 after Steve Adams, of Coleshill, Warwickshire, was attacked while on holiday with his wife Jane near Sidbury, in Devon while out for a walk with their Springer Spaniel called Lisa.
They were walking along a public footpath through a field containing cows with calves when one of the cows struck him with its head in July 2021. The 63-year-old grandfather spent seven days in intensive care as a result of his injuries.
Mr Adams said: "My own grandfather was a farmer, so I’d been around cattle as a child, and I wasn’t scared of them. Now, I wouldn’t go into a field with cows, you don’t know what’s going to happen. People should be very wary of cows.
"It was just the one cow, the biggest one. It came up and threw me into the air with its head and then it trod all over me. I was trying to crawl out of the way, but it just kept landing its hooves on me.
"The dog was on its lead and I’d managed to let it go and it made it away. My wife had one of those plastic ball throwers for the dog and she was hitting the cow with it but it made no difference at all. I managed to roll away from under it."
A Health & Safety Executive (HSE) investigation found that more than 20 cattle including young calves were being kept in a field with a public right of way across it, in breach of regulations.
Farmer Barry Fowler pleaded guilty to breaching Section 3(2) of the Health & Safety at Work Act 1974 and was fined £555 and ordered to pay costs of £3,000 at Exeter Magistrates’ Court on March 8 as a result of the incident.
HSE inspector Simon Jones said: “Cattle are extremely protective of their calves and even calm cattle can become aggressive if they think the calves may, in any way, be threatened, even by members of the public walking past.
“Farmers should not place cattle with calves in fields where members of the public have a legal right to walk unless appropriate measures are in place such as robust fencing separating cattle from people. Had Barry Fowler done this then the incident could not have happened.”
