By staff reporter

Last updated 09:01, Friday, 13 June 2008

Semen taken from a prize-winning bull at a north Cumbrian artificial insemination centre was wrongly labelled, making it almost impossible to sell, a court heard.

And the error proved extremely costly for top Scottish farmer Hamish Sclater who owned the animal which died before the mistake came to light.

Now Mr Sclater, of Denhead Farm, Dunlugan, Turriff, Aberdeenshire, is seeking damages of more than £67,000 from Lindsay’s A1, which is based at Rockcliffe.

Judge Peter Hughes QC, sitting at Carlisle County Court and hearing evidence over the past two days, was told that sum was made up of two elements. The first was what an expert believes the 1,000-plus semen straws would have been worth had they not been wrongly labelled – a sum of £27.50 each. The second was the enhanced value and reputation of Mr Sclater’s Aberdeen Angus herd, had those straws been used for artificial insemination purposes and produced pedigree calves.

Mr Sclater sent the bull – Deveron Limited Edition – to the AI centre in May 2005 in the hope of exporting some of the semen that was to be extracted to Europe, particularly the Republic of Ireland.

But his plans were scuppered in November of that year when it was discovered that the animal’s semen had been put in straws labelled Dueronside Latest Edition.

The name of the bull is vital because the Aberdeen Angus Cattle Society will not register calves from artificial insemination unless the source of the semen can be identified.

To make matters worse no more semen could be taken from Deveron Limited Edition because he was found dead in a field in July that year. Mr Sclater told Judge Hughes that “a huge market was lost” because of the labelling error.

Roger and Helen Lindsay, who help run the AI centre, accept that a human error was made when the person who normally did the labelling was not there.

Mr Linsday, who gave evidence late on Wednesday, agreed that he had suggested trying to alter the labels on the straws as one possible answer to the problem.

But he said: “There would have to be a consensus about that. I was not going to do anything illegal. The straws were wrongly labelled. I make no defence to that issue.”

At the time of going to press a decision on the outcome of the case was not known.