A MAN who supplied horses to the Queen has ended up with a £6,300 court bill after he was convicted of welfare and equine ‘passport’ offences.

Former North Wales police officer Peter Kenneth Jones, 59, of Plas Power Stables, Plas Power Estate, Bersham, near Wrexham, denied a series of offences at Wrexham Magistrates’ Court, sitting at Mold.

But following a three-day trial, he was convicted of all but two charges and fined £3,300 with £3,000 costs.

Magistrates said they would not ban him from owning horses because of his reputation and good character and the fact that a ban would mean that he would lose his livelihood.

The court heard how Jones had “a long and distinguished career as a horse trader” and had provided horses which acted as escorts for the Royal Carriage and regularly supplied horses to the Thames Valley force.

Officers from Wrexham Council attended the stables in January last year and found a chestnut gelding with an abscess under its jaw and overgrown feet. It was also suffering from the highly infectious disease, ‘strangles’.

Jones said he was experienced with horses and was treating the animal, but he was convicted of causing it unnecessary suffering on the basis that he should have provided pain relief.

He was also convicted of causing unnecessary suffering to a bay mare with an open wound to her fetlock which was sore and infected.

But he was cleared of causing unnecessary suffering to another horse, said to have a cellulitic right hind leg, and failing to keep a horse isolated from the one which had ‘strangles’.

Jones was convicted of five ‘passport’ offences under The Equine Identification (Wales) Regulations 2009. Louise Edwards, prosecuting, said anyone selling a horse had to hand over the identity documents at the same time to allow horses to be traced.

The court heard two horses had been sold with the wrong ‘passports’. Jones had bought a horse without a ‘passport’ and failed to notify the issuing body of his name and address within 30 days of a transaction.

Jones, a father of three, said they were not deliberate but innocent mistakes and slammed the ‘passport’ regulation scheme as “absolutely chaotic”.

Chris Johnson, defending, said Jones had believed it was like a car dealer who passed on the registration details of a car to a new purchaser without registering his own name as an owner.

Jones admitted a charge of passing ownership of a horse to a new owner without a ‘passport’. In evidence, Jones said he was experienced in treating horses himself rather than calling in a vet for routine conditions.