A SHEEP rustler has been ordered to pay back more than £130,000 from his criminal earnings, but his uncle and co-accused will pay nothing.

A judge at Teesside Crown Court ruled that Phillip Raine will pay the full amount of his ill-gotten gains, £130,251, having assets amounting to £360,387.

Raine’s uncle Charles, who like his nephew was found guilty after a trial of stealing more than a hundred sheep, was also found to have benefited by the same amount.

But because he has nil assets the pensioner, also known as Neville, will pay nothing.

The pair, from the Bowes area of County Durham, were labelled “parasites” by police after being convicted of conspiring to use criminal property in December last year. They were subsequently jailed for three years each.

They stole 116 sheep worth almost £25,000 from 14 different hill farmers in three different counties, Cumbria, Durham and North Yorkshire, between 2010 and 2013.

Durham Police, whose serious and organised crime team investigated the case, successfully reunited the stolen ewes with their owners following a mass viewing day, effectively a sheep identity parade.

But it was believed there could be a great deal many more stolen sheep unaccounted for.

Markings used to identify the animals had been removed or disguised by the Raines.

The prosecution said the thefts, traced to farms owned by Phillip and Charles Raine, was “deliberate, organised and orchestrated”.

But they maintained their innocence throughout a lengthy trial, calling witnesses liars.

The reputation of Charles, of Stainmore Road, Bowes, in particular, who had a 50-long year connection to the breeding community in Swaledale, was quickly destroyed following the prosecution.

Judge Tony Briggs said it had been an “attack on people’s hard work” and was “utterly inexcusable”.

He told Phillip Raine, who farmed at Hazel Gill, near Bowes, that he had showed a “cynical and predatory” attitude towards his neighbours.

  • This case has no connection to Robin Raine, a sheep farmer in the Eden Valley, or his son, Charles Raine, a surveyor from Northumberland.