A farming family has described the military operation they had to launch to snare a depraved man who had sex with their cows.
Ian and Tracey Farwell suspected something underhanded was going on in their cowshed late at night, as the calves were regularly in a state of distress at morning feeding time.
Over a six-month period, the couple found surgical gloves, a discarded cow rope and a pair of trousers scattered around their fourth-generation farm in Burton, near Christchurch, Dorset.
Determined to get to the bottom of the matter, they installed several CCTV cameras in the cowshed and hatched a plan to catch the culprit.
Liam Brown, pictured outside Poole Magistrate's Court, was caught on CCTV sexually abusing calves on Ian and Tracey Farwell's farm in Dorset
Ian and Tracey Farwell, pictured, set up CCTV cameras to monitor their herd after the death rate among young calves rose dramatically
One evening the family saw an intruder having sex with one of their calves. When they turned on the shed lights, they saw Liam Brown, 25, with his pants around his ankles. He said he was 'f***** up' when he was discovered.
One summer evening last year, their son Ralph heard the sound of a calf in distress just before midnight.
He checked the camera footage on his mobile phone and saw a mysterious figure in the pen with the calves.
This prompted four family members to quietly rush out and surround the cowshed, blocking every exit.
They waited five minutes to give everyone time to find their spots, and then one of them turned on the lights.
To their horror, they were greeted by the sight of a young man wiggling with his pants down behind one calf.
He immediately pulled up his pants and tried to escape.
He obstructed a fence, but startled the cows in the adjacent stable and was trampled by them.
Brown, pictured outside Bournemouth Crown Court this week. He escaped a prison sentence after being convicted of one count of sexual penetration with a live animal and another charge of causing unnecessary suffering to an animal
The Farwell family surrounded the twisted intruder and they soon realized it was Liam Brown, the son of their former farmhand, whom they had known since he was five years old.
The 25-year-old lay on the floor sobbing and said, “Sorry, I messed up.”
This week Brown came face to face with Mr and Mrs Farwell again when he was convicted at Bournemouth Crown Court of one charge of sexual penetration with a live animal and one offense of causing unnecessary suffering to a protected animal .
He avoided jail and was given a community order, banned from keeping livestock for ten years and ordered to pay £600 compensation to the farmers.
The Farwells say his “depravity” has taken a huge emotional toll on them.
Ian Farwell, 59, said: “We started finding surgical gloves and clothes on the farm that weren't ours in January 2022.
'We contacted the police, but they could do nothing.
'As time went on, we noticed more and more calves were getting sick and we tried to find out why.
Mr and Mrs Farwell, pictured outside Bournemouth Crown Court, said they initially thought they had done something wrong because of the death rate among cows on their farm
The family recovered discarded rubber gloves that had not been used on the farm
'We took them to the vet to see if they had any germs and wondered if we were doing something wrong with them.
'Looking back, I think someone went into the cages three or four times a week but didn't know what he was doing.
'We came up with a plan where we would catch them red-handed, that was the only way to stop it.
'That night, Ralph was outside and heard a distressed noise from a calf, so he checked the CCTV footage on his phone.
'He saw that someone was in the cowshed, so we gave each other five minutes to get into position and turned on the lights.
“When the lights came on, we saw this man sitting behind a calf with his pants down. It was clear what he did.
'He jumped over a fence and tried to walk over it, but some cows trampled him and we surrounded him.
'As we got closer we recognized it was Liam and he was crying and saying he messed up.
'We called the police and waited with him. They took DNA samples and proved what he had done.
Bournemouth Crown Court heard that Brown's father had worked as a farmhand on the farm and had been a regular visitor when he was younger
The camera images were able to warn the family that an intruder was in the building
'I was told that when the police viewed the CCTV footage it was so shocking that some of the female officers were crying.
'We knew Ian when he was five years old and he was at our house, his father worked for us.
'Because he knew the farm so well, he knew the exits and was able to avoid being caught.
“My wife and I have been farmers our entire adult lives and childhood.
“Our work is hard and the rewards are few, but the one thing that keeps us going is the privilege of working with and caring for our animals.
'The effect on us, but especially on my wife Tracey, has been catastrophic.
'We almost feel responsible for this outrage and it has had serious consequences for our health.
Mr Farwell said 20 calves had died prematurely before Brown's arrest in June 2022 – compared to three in the 18 months since.
'Tracey can barely enter the cowsheds without great emotional strain.'
Mr Farwell said 20 calves had died prematurely before Brown's arrest in June 2022 – compared to three in the 18 months since.
But he said: 'We can't prove 100 per cent it was him, they could have been sick. But since it stopped last year, only two or three have died. It cost us tens of thousands.”
The court heard Brown had no qualifications but worked for an agency and had worked night shifts stacking shelves.
Judge Keith Cutler sentenced him to a three-year community order with rehabilitation requirements and 150 hours of unpaid work.
The Farwell family has been running their cattle ranch for 144 years and has approximately 400 cows.
Tracey Farwell, 60, still checks the cattle shed every morning because she fears Brown will strike again as Brown is not behind bars.
She said: 'You never think that someone could be so depraved.
'My job was to feed the calves. They would be fine if I left them at night, and then in the morning I would find them sick and having trouble breathing.
'I thought they had pneumonia so I tried to treat them for that, but that was actually because he was choking them with his belt.
“He took off his belt to tie the calf to the fence.
“He should have gone to jail.”