A FARM at the centre of a sheep rustling scandal that shocked the agricultural community has been put up for sale with a £1.25m guide price.

Charles Raine and his nephew Philip Raine, from the Bowes area near Barnard Castle, were sentenced to three years in prison in January 2016 after sheep worth £25,000 were discovered on their North Pennine farms.

The case made the national headlines, with police holding identity parades to allow the rightful owners to claim their stolen livestock. More than a dozen farmers from County Durham, North Yorkshire and Cumbria identified 116 sheep, despite the Raines’ efforts to remove their usual markings.

Now Hazel Gill Farm, home to Philip Raine and the scene of one of the sheep identity parades, is on the market with Penrith-based Robson & Liddle Chartered Surveyors with a price tag of more than £1m.

And Coach and Horses Farm, on the A66 near Bowes, which has a long connection to the Raine family, is also up for sale with GSC Grays in Barnard Castle with a £200,000 guide price.

Charles Raine, who is also known as Neville, gave the five-bedroom farmhouse as his address during the court proceedings but The Northern Echo has heard the property may have been sold recently and placed on the market by the new owner. The Land Registry and GCS Grays, however, are unable to confirm this.

During the trial, Judge Tony Briggs described the Raines’ actions as an “attack on people’s hard work and the community”, while Detective Inspector Paul Phillips later likened them to parasites who “fed off other farmers around them.”

The public gallery at Teesside Crown Court was packed full of hill farmers, many of whom were tens of thousands of pounds worse off because of the Raines.

Charles Raine had a 50 year connection to the breeding community in Swaledale and his victims accused the pair of destroying the trust sheep farmers rely upon.

Philip Raine’s solicitor Denise Breen-Lawton said the family had been “vilified and outcast” following the prosecution and could no longer sell any stock in the area.

The thefts occurred between 2010 and 2013 and the pair’s conviction for conspiring to use criminal property followed a major investigation led by Durham Police.

Last December, Philip Raine was ordered to pay back more than £130,000 from his criminal earnings after being found to have assets amounting to £360,387. His uncle, a pensioner with no assets, will pay nothing.

Hazel Gill Farm comprises a four-bedroom farm house, 240 acres of land and various outbuildings.

John Robson, of Robson & Liddle, said: “Hazel Gill has proved itself to be an excellent stock rearing farm and offers real potential to a future buyer.”

- The case is not connected to Robin Raine, a sheep farmer in the Eden Valley, or his son, Charles Raine, a surveyor from Northumberland.