BY BEN O’ROURKE
The raptor propagandist Ruth Tingay hates me. I know this, as she blocked me on every social media platform not long after the case against me and Fieldsports Channel was brought by one of her best mates, Chris Packham.
But in York on Thursday 29th January, she may have crossed a line from distance-hatred to in-your-face harassment.
I was standing outside the magistrates’ court waiting for everyone to leave after Racster Dingwall pleaded guilty to intending to harm hen harriers. The judge emphasised that no birds were actually harmed or killed during the incident on Grassington Moor in October 2024, which was covertly filmed by the RSPB.
The ruling contradicted claims by the RSPB and Tingay that a hen harrier was killed, so she was probably unhappy about that after leaving court. I politely smiled at her, which was when she walked up and stuck her phone camera in my face for a few seconds. My friend Ben Tarvie filmed the whole scene.
While it may have been the verdict, it may also have been a reaction to my report RSPB Uncovered: The Missing ‘Birdcrime’ Files, in which I focus on the unpublicised exploits of two of her other best mates, RSPB investigators Guy Shorrock and Mark Thomas.
Thomas had been at the trial and I was actually filming him and fellow RSPB investigator Howard Jones. It seemed to be Tingay’s ego that made her assume I was pointing the camera at her.
Regardless, the report lays out in detail some of the cases where the RSPB also crossed the line and harassed people, or even framed them for crimes they did not commit. It makes Tingay’s mates look like hit men for the biggest gangsters in conservation, as they led the persecution of anyone muscling in on the charity’s patch.
Here’s a quick list of things Thomas has been up to:
- Fabrication and manipulation of evidence in the case against gamekeeper Glenn Brown. Thomas claimed a white pigeon found in the keeper’s loft had unique wing markings matching a bird filmed in a trap. However, the RSPB’s own footage catches Thomas and a colleague discussing someone “covering his statement”.
- In a related case, Thomas delivered a dead peregrine falcon to a vet to prove it had been shot from the sky near a grousemoor. However, it had “freezer burns” and the vet found the bird died from peritonitis and was not blasted out of the sky by a shotgun. He also admitted it was possible the bird was planted on the moor.
- Interference with due process. Despite being a charity worker with no legal authority, Thomas has conducted numerous police interviews. A judge criticised him for his “lack of proper disclosure” when interviewing suspects.
- During the trial of gamekeeper Reg Cripps, Thomas was accused of pressuring local birdwatchers to turn against the gamekeeper, threatening that they would never get work from the RSPB if they did not cooperate.
- Prioritising statistics and publicity over welfare. In his Hen Harrier Day 2024 speech, Thomas stated that the severity of sentences for wildlife crimes is “irrelevant” to the RSPB. He declared, “it’s about the stats” and “people power”, suggesting a fixation on RSPB member numbers rather than justice for bird crimes.
- Thomas and the RSPB invited an ITV News crew to film a hen harrier nest to publicise a rare breeding success. Following the disturbance, the nest failed and the chicks died. Thomas later announced the failure without acknowledging the potential role the media stunt played.
- Leaking evidence to media. Thomas and his team provided covert footage of the Dingwall incident to Channel 4 News before informing the police, jeopardising the investigation to secure a publicity victory.
- Harassment and intimidation. Thomas claims credit for using anti-social behaviour orders (ASBOs) against egg collectors, which required proving the defendants caused “harassment, alarm or distress”. Yet the RSPB’s aggressive and sustained tactics against gamekeepers causes harassment, alarm and distress.
As for Shorrock, here’s a summary of the tactics that have made him notorious:
- Trespassing and ‘burglary’. In 2005, Shorrock was present at a police raid on the office of Chris Marshall. Despite not being named on the warrant, he entered the property and was filmed by a police officer trying to force open a locked door using a screwdriver. A district judge later ruled that Shorrock trespassed and held him liable for the damage to the door.
- False testimony. Shorrock claimed he did not cause damage and was merely ‘assisting’ the police. The judge accused him of lying in court.
- Withholding exculpatory evidence. During the trial of John Dodsworth, Shorrock claimed vital defence documents were missing. It took pressure from the judge and both barristers before Shorrock “found” the documents in the evidence bags he had been in possession of for nearly two years.
- Abuse of legal and scientific procedures, plus conflict of interest. Shorrock aggressively pushed for the use of DNA testing developed by a lab run by a former RSPB trustee to secure convictions against bird breeders. This was despite the Department of the Environment explicitly telling the RSPB and the lab not to use the testing in criminal court cases until there was proof the system worked.
- Withholding government objections. In the case of Derek Canning, Shorrock withheld the DoE’s objections to using the testing from the police, the Crown Prosecution Service and the defence. This resulted in Canning being imprisoned based on an experimental DNA testing system that was later deemed unreliable.
- In the same case, Shorrock oversaw the extraction of blood samples by an untrained person claiming to be a veterinary nurse. This action was described by a vet as “amateurish”, “not welfare friendly” and potentially illegal under the Veterinary Surgeons Act.
- Interference with law enforcement, according to former National Wildlife Crime Unit (NWCU) head Nevin Hunter. An FOI email release documented complaints that Shorrock and his team would “take over” investigations, demand to interview suspects and direct police on who to charge. Shorrock and his team were also accused of accessing the Police National Computer (PNC) without a warrant and demanding access to restricted data.
- Targeting legal egg owners. Shorrock led raids that exploited a 2004 legal loophole that criminalised previously legal egg collections. He also instructed police forces not to return property, despite convictions being quashed or property confiscated and raids finding nothing.
As well as those shenanigans, what is only skirted over in the report is how raptor breeders and falconers are blackmailed into snitching on people in their community, to save themselves from losing their birds and years of torment at the hands of Shorrock, Thomas or their predecessors.
If Tingay doesn’t know this, she hasn’t done her due diligence. Or asked her pal and fellow propagandist, crooked Guy Shorrock.
Ben O’Rourke worked as Assistant International Editor of the South China Morning Post and as a journalist for Fieldsports Britain. Ben now works as a freelance journalist and investigator. His Substack can be found here.