Lifetime ban on entering Scotland at breeding season for serial egg thief

Court appearance: Matthew Gonshaw banned from Scotland during breeding season for life.

A serial egg thief has been banned from entering Scotland for life during the bird breeding season.

Matthew Gonshaw was branded a "wildlife destroyer" by a sheriff in his latest court appearance for stealing wild bird eggs.

The 49-year-old appeared at Inverness Sheriff Court and admitted taking 20 wild bird eggs from the Isle of Rum last year.

Gonshaw, of Bow, East London, was also jailed for six months.

Sheriff Margaret Neilson said: "You have been unable to provide any explanation for your twisted behaviour and have shown no remorse whatsoever.

"You may call yourself a wildlife collector. You are in fact a wildlife destroyer."

The court heard that Gonshaw went to the Scottish Natural Heritage nature reserve on the island on May 25, and was spotted by a deer researcher.

Fiscal depute Ian Smith said: "He was dashing through the colony picking up eggs before disappearing into a blackhouse and a bothy.

"The incident was reported to police who later found broken eggs."

When officers caught Gonshaw and searched him they found 20 eggs and an egg-blowing kit in his rucksack.

He had taken seven Meadow Pipit eggs, eight Manx Shearwater eggs and five others which could have been Reed Bunting or Black Cap.

He also had maps for the Inverness and Cairngorm areas where there are populations of Red Kite, Osprey and Golden Eagle.

Defence agent Craig Wood said Gonshaw was "fascinated" with birds eggs at an early age, because his father was a butterfly collector.

He said: "He has never sold any, but he realises he has to stop and accepts he has no justification for taking eggs."

In December last year Gonshaw was jailed for six months for stealing hundreds of rare eggs, his fourth prison sentence for such an offence.

In February he was banned from travelling to Scotland during breeding season for ten years, the first time such an anti-social behaviour order was made for crimes against nature.

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