Man found guilty over birds of prey dumped outside Hampshire village shop

James Kempster’s DNA was found on dead barn owl and kestrel rammed into door handles of volunteer store A man has been found guilty of possessing the bodies of wild birds of prey that were dumped alongside 50 dead hares outside a village shop in Hampshire. Traces of James Kempster’s DNA were found on the bodies of a barn owl and kestrel that were rammed into the handles of the volunteer-led shop in Broughton. However, magistrates in Southampton said the evidence did not show Kempster, 39, was a hooded person who threw the hares on to the paved area in front of the shop, left the birds in the door and smeared blood on the windows. They cleared him of criminal damage. The court heard that Kempster, a roofer and father of three from Totton in the New Forest, has criminal convictions for poaching and will be sentenced over the birds of prey in June. Magistrates were told that three men went to the shop in the early hours of 15 March 2024 and turned it into a “horror movie scene”. A Suzuki Vitara 4x4 they used to get to the village was found burnt out a few miles away. The incident left residents of the village, home to about 1,000 inhabitants, unsettled and upset and prompted an invest