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Wakefield couple face jail over dead animal trading UPDATED
A Wakefield couple are facing jail after admitting trading in dead, endangered animals including a lion cub and monkeys.
Graham and Norah Pitchforth yesterday pleaded guilty to 24 charges related to buying, selling, importing and exporting dead endangered species from their home in Wakefield.
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The couple used eBay to trade in animals that also included the skulls of two crab eating macaque monkeys, 59 Malayan flying foxes and a chacma baboon.
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Graham Pitchforth, 61, and Norah Pitchforth, 65, stood silently beside each other in the dock, speaking only to confirm their names and plead guilty to each of the 24 charges put to them.
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The couple, from Southfield Close, Wrenthorpe, Wakefield, will be sentenced next month at Leeds Crown Court after Judge Kerry Macgill told them: "These are serious matters.
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"I am going to ask for a pre-sentence report but be under no illusions that all options, including a custodial sentence, will be open to me."
A confiscation hearing will also be held and the Pitchforths will be required to disclose their assets to the court.
The couple's home was raided in December 2006 by officers from West Yorkshire Police alongside HM Revenue and Customs and the National
Wildlife Crime Unit.
The offences took place between October 2005 and December 2006.
Mr Pitchforth is believed to have been a lecturer in animal care at a local college.
Species the Pitchforths have admitted trading in include a sparrowhawk, little owl, barn owl, tawny owl, steppe buzzard, otter skull, African black kestral, yellow-billed kite, African lion cub, snowy owl, kestral, rufous cheeked hornbill casque, crab eating macaque, pig tailed macaque, crocodile monitor, chacma baboon, Malayan flying fox, north American otter, lesser tree shrew, butterflies and a Javan black langur.
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