Ex-Policeman Who Kept Bird Eggs Spared Jail

A former policeman who admitted illegally possessing hundreds of wild bird eggs has been spared a prison sentence.

Michael Upson collected around 650 eggs, including protected species such as woodlark, Cetti's warbler and marsh harrier, while he was still a serving officer.

They were found in his loft, stored inside an old suitcase.

The 52-year-old pleaded guilty at Norwich Magistrates' Court and was given a 14-week sentence, suspended for 12 months.

Magistrate Eamon Lambert said he had seriously considered imposing a jail term.

"Your actions had a marked effect on the bird population and a serious impact on the environment," he told Upson.

The sentencing followed a joint investigation by the police and the RSPB.

The charity's investigations officer Mark Thomas said: "That a police officer should knowingly break the law in pursuit of this obsession is shocking, and we welcome his conviction.

"We are pleased with the sentence - it is fitting with the evidence heard.

"I don't think he is an individual who will go back to egg collecting and thankfully egg collecting is becoming more and more unusual in the UK."

Notebooks found during a search of Upson's home in Sotherton, Suffolk, will be seized and destroyed.

They detailed his egg collecting trips with others around the UK, including a visit to the Western Isles to steal golden eagle eggs.

In one entry for April 1997, Upson wrote: "I then started on the long journey home absolutely thrilled and delighted with the clutch and pleased I had learned a little bit more about the nesting habits of a bird completely new to me."

Roger Thomson, mitigating, denied suggestions that his client had collected eggs while on duty.

Upson must pay £120 in legal costs and complete 150 hours of unpaid work.