What exactly is the law about stolen bees?

[enrico]

Everyone speeds at some point if they say they don't, they are lying, most people do 80 on motorways even though it is a 70 limit. As a motorcycle rider I think more emphasis should be preventing people using mobile phones than on speeding. I ride over 20 miles to work every day, & pass lots of traffic as they are usually all stuck in jams, I must pass at least a dozen people on phones every single day, why don't they target these? why are fines bigger for speeding than using phones? I wonder what the statistics are for accidents using mobiles compared to speeding?

I could be wrong again, as I say I am now retired but I think they both get three points and £100 fine! If I am wrong I apologise.
E

 

[jonnybeegood]

I could be wrong again, as I say I am now retired but I think they both get three points and £100 fine! If I am wrong I apologise.
E

you are right I thought it was £60 fine for mobile phones. the police here target speeding here all the time but ive never heard of them targeting mobile phone users, I wonder why that is, given the amount of people not deterred by the fine.

 

[user 6228]

I have found traffic cops usually very courteous, and if they don't have speeding gun in the hand, willing to use their discretion ,usually does not mean all. There are bad apples. I have personally experienced blatant lying to get convictions and attempts at extortion from police officers

 

[Into the lions den]

Speed limits are there to protect mainly those not in cars. You sad people who think it is all about money!

I was at a business dinner in Edinburgh a few years back. One of the speakers was a chief constable from a regional Scottish force prior to their unification recently.

His subject was varied and highly entertaining, but one aspect he mentioned was concerning the 'economics of a well placed speed camera'. The yield from a particular camera on the A1 was highlighted.

My personal brush with this took place at 1am on the M6 north of Lancaster. All was dark, the roads were dry and perfect. There was a roadworks all closed down for the night. The cones were removed to the inner edge of the hard shoulder (so actually almost on the gravel/grass) and all lighting turned off. There was ONE 50mph sign sitting somewhat askew, and unlit, near the start of the short section. They had left ONE thing on. The speed camera.

Got done for 61mph at night with no other traffic about and no real indication that there was any special restriction. A few days later, again at the dead of night, I was overtaken in the same section in the same circumstances by a car which set off the camera too.

I accept all too well that there are black spots where this activity is entirely appropriate, having lost a female friend to speeders, but it is not clear cut that it is all about safety. In some cases it is to catch the maximum number of people, in situations that are not actually dangerous. Motive? Well there are several possibilities.

 

[user 6228]

I have found traffic cops usually very courteous, and if they don't have speeding gun in the hand, willing to use their discretion ,usually does not mean all. There are bad apples. I have personally experienced blatant lying to get convictions and attempts at extortion from police officers

 

[enrico]

It is a complicated and An emotive subject. Not all fines go to police forces, some cameras are there for the safety of people working on the road, some are at collision sites, some are there because of local complaints. Some are there for reasons that are not clear like the one you describe. If what you say is true then it was illegal. The signs need to be legal. I would have photographed the 50 sign and pleaded not guilty. The signage is the responsibility of the highways authority, nothing to do with the police, and the camera you describe was for road works, nothing to do with the police again, but you all blame the police! I get accused of getting my facts wrong!
E

 

[jonnybeegood]

I have found traffic cops usually very courteous, and if they don't have speeding gun in the hand, willing to use their discretion ,usually does not mean all. There are bad apples. I have personally experienced blatant lying to get convictions and attempts at extortion from police officers

The one that caught me was intent on prosecuting me from the start, I had explained about being stuck behind this slow driver for miles, but knew he wasn't interested, I was read my rights so said no more. when I got a letter from court the policeman had quoted what I had said about being stuck behind this slow driver even though I said this before being read my rights, in other words he lied to get a conviction!!

 

[Into the lions den]

If what you say is true then it was illegal. The signs need to be legal. I would have photographed the 50 sign and pleaded not guilty.E

Of course. I have since been informed privately by a friend who is a police officer that the signs are not legal if they are not illuminated. Proving this is a different matter.

In my case the fine was issued by the police. If the camera was part of the roadworks set up so be it. Does not seem to matter.

Bowling along up the motorway at night and being flashed maybe a quarter mile on from the sign, and not even sure you will ever hear of it again, makes stopping to take a photograph an inconvenient and potentially very dangerous thing to do. No way, other than in dire emergency, would I get out of a vehicle on a motorway. Thus you just shut up and pay the fine.

The flash itself was hellish bright and for a couple of secs my vision was affected and that combined with the fright it gave me was much more dangerous than the driving. I was quite flustered.

 

[enrico]

The one that caught me was intent on prosecuting me from the start, I had explained about being stuck behind this slow driver for miles, but knew he wasn't interested, I was read my rights so said no more. when I got a letter from court the policeman had quoted what I had said about being stuck behind this slow driver even though I said this before being read my rights, in other words he lied to get a conviction!!

No, he already had the evidence for a conviction. You just confirmed everything he already knew! Maybe you should just have apologise do!

 

[enrico]

Of course. I have since been informed privately by a friend who is a police officer that the signs are not legal if they are not illuminated. Proving this is a different matter.

In my case the fine was issued by the police. If the camera was part of the roadworks set up so be it. Does not seem to matter.

Bowling along up the motorway at night and being flashed maybe a quarter mile on from the sign, and not even sure you will ever hear of it again, makes stopping to take a photograph an inconvenient and potentially very dangerous thing to do. No way, other than in dire emergency, would I get out of a vehicle on a motorway. Thus you just shut up and pay the fine.

The flash itself was hellish bright and for a couple of secs my vision was affected and that combined with the fright it gave me was much more dangerous than the driving. I was quite flustered.

Oh, dear! How very upsetting, I do hope you have recovered now! Bet you won't speed there again!
fined and blinded, what terrible luck you have!

 

[Into the lions den]

Oh, dear! How very upsetting, I do hope you have recovered now! Bet you won't speed there again!
fined and blinded, what terrible luck you have!

Lol.....I did not even know I WAS speeding. Nice. Flustered lasted only a couple of minutes. (Not seen a speed camera so bright since, most now seem to flash so briefly that your eyes never adjust. Seen many of them getting set off, fortunately by others.)

Then after the letter arrived I was annoyed. I wrote explaining the situation, a correspondence that lasted a couple of months, and all I got back were bland self satisfied party line responses. 'The Chief constable, bearing in mind the circumstances, decided that......blah blah blah..'. We are right, you have to pay, enforcement will follow if you do not. All from the court at Preston.

High accident risk places its fine, I have no issues with speed trapping. However, even in our own little town, the standard response to 'Why are you trapping here? is 'Complaints from residents.' Believe me many have asked the question, and many of those were pedestrians. Our local community council have been involved. They handled most of the residents complaints. (My ex was until recently on that council, so knew the facts.)

However the complaints were almost without exception about two particular streets in the town, with motorists speeding along two longish straight roads, and they do. NEVER have the trappers been seen on these roads. Instead on two of the roads into the village they hide the car behind hedges and trap people entering and leaving right at the 30mph signs, slowing down on the way in or accelerating away on departure. Nearly a mile away from where the complaints were about.

Does not make them popular with the local community as the complaints remain completely unaddressed, and are used as the premise for the action they do take, where there have been very few if any complaints. FWIW, the camera van is regularly situated close to a junction about a mile and a half outside the town. No=one has any quarrel with that as it is undoubtedly justified.

Sorry to all, will bow out on this now, as it is so seriously off topic.......


But on the subject of bee thefts.......our culprit last spring was to my great surprise eventually caught and had his day in court, found guilty. I do not know what the sentence was as I left. Had been at the bees of others too. He had never noticed that our frames differ a bit from the normal off the shelf patterns and were identifiable, so they had good evidence.

 

[For want of a better word]

But on the subject of bee thefts.......our culprit last spring was to my great surprise eventually caught and had his day in court, found guilty. I do not know what the sentence was as I left. Had been at the bees of others too. He had never noticed that our frames differ a bit from the normal off the shelf patterns and were identifiable, so they had good evidence.

Sent to Colonsay for 5 years community service beekeeping... and not allowed off the island !

Yeghes da

 

[Firefly]

Very pleased to hear that someone was caught. Did you find out any details about the person concerned? What kind of person does this?!

 

[mbc]

. It depends on the person not the job,
E[/QUOTE]

Keep telling yourself that if you like, if it helps

 

[Into the lions den]

Very pleased to hear that someone was caught. Did you find out any details about the person concerned? What kind of person does this?!

He was a 55yo man, from the general area, been a beekeeper for many years. Superficially just an ordinary guy you might meet at your local association. Worked on a farm not far from here but had been stealing bees and equipment up to 25 miles away.

 

[Hivemaker.]

He was a 55yo man, from the general area, been a beekeeper for many years. Superficially just an ordinary guy you might meet at your local association. Worked on a farm not far from here but had been stealing bees and equipment up to 25 miles away.

Good to just know who it was.

 

[Firefly]

Good to just know who it was.

It is good, but it somehow seems even more odd. All that effort and risk and time just to steal some bees. It's never going to pay for the ticket to Benidorm, is it? Maybe I'm just too idle to be criminal

 

[thorn]

We had a case last year when someone stole queens from mating nucs. But as the law stands with bees being insects and no legal claim to ownership to insects being recognised there is nothing that can be done.

The Theft Act 1968, S4(4) is clear. Wild animals are property, and it is theft to take them if they are in the possession of someone else. And the maximum sentence is 7 years inside.

So if a policeman tells you anything to the contrary, refer him to the Act and ask him to check with the CPS. If need be, threaten to make a formal complaint. Just don't let him know your car number or you'll find yourself stopped every time you go out.

 

[oxnatbees]

Well this has been a very illuminating series of answers to the original question. Thank you.

 

[itma]

The Theft Act 1968, S4(4) is clear. Wild animals are property, and it is theft to take them if they are in the possession of someone else. And the maximum sentence is 7 years inside.

Just in case anyone hasn't looked it up S4(4) reads

(4)Wild creatures, tamed or untamed, shall be regarded as property; but a person cannot steal a wild creature not tamed nor ordinarily kept in captivity, or the carcase of any such creature, unless either it has been reduced into possession by or on behalf of another person and possession of it has not since been lost or abandoned, or another person is in course of reducing it into possession.

This only applies IF one accepts that bees in a hive are "wild animals".
There is then the question arising of whether bees are "wild animals" that are EITHER "tamed" OR "ordinarily kept in captivity". If not, then they cannot be 'stolen'. And I don't think it is clear that they are "in captivity" (some of mine are definitely not tamed!) One might argue that they were "kept captive" by the beekeeper's effort in retaining the queen in the hive, thereby ensuring that the workers returned to their 'captivity'. But this level of technicality can be avoided.


I think this "wild animal" S4(4) line of argument should not be necessary.
The principal argument should be, quite simply, that bees are bought and sold as property, and have been accepted by (civil) law precident as property which merited compensation on damage.
And that in turn should bring them within the scope of S4(1)

(1)“Property” includes money and all other property, real or personal, including things in action and other intangible property.

There's no need to get involved in tricky questions of whether or not bees are "wild" AND "in captivity".