Cow tosses terrified holidaymaker into air and stamps on him

A farmer has been fined after one of his cows tossed a terrified holidaymaker into the air and stamped on him as he tried to crawl away.

Barry Fowler, whose farm is near Sidbury, Devon, pleaded guilty to breaching Section 3(2) of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974. He was fined £555 and ordered to pay costs of £3,000 by Exeter magistrates.

The court heard that Steve Adams, 63, of Coleshill, Warwickshire, was on a summer holiday with his wife Jane at the East Devon caravan and motorhome campsite in July 2021 when they decided to go for a walk with their springer spaniel dog, which was on a lead.

They were walking along a public footpath through a field where there were cows with calves.

One of the one-ton cows bellowed and charged, leaving Mr Adams badly injured from the ferocious attack. He spent seven days in intensive care.

‘Pretty scary day’

Mr Adams, a retired father of three with two grandchildren, told the court: “My grandfather was a farmer, so I’d been around cattle as a child, and I wasn’t scared of them.

“Now, I wouldn’t go into a field with cows, you don’t know what’s going to happen. People should be very wary of cows.”

He said their walk took them from a pub through fields. As they headed towards a pedestrian gate, they came to an electric fence surrounding the field’s edge.

They were then surrounded by more than 20 cattle, some with calves.

A cow approached, lowered its head and tossed Mr Adams into the air.

It then trampled him on the ground until he managed to crawl away as his wife tried to bash the animal with a plastic stick.

He said: “It was just the one cow, the biggest one. It came up and threw me into the air with its head and then it trod all over me.

“I was trying to crawl out of the way, but it just kept landing its hooves on me.

“The dog was on its lead and I’d managed to let it go and it made it away.

“My wife had one of those plastic ball throwers for the dog and she was hitting the cow with it but it made no difference at all. I managed to roll away from under it.

“I wasn’t feeling too good at all, I couldn’t breathe.

“It had taken us about 15 minutes to walk to where it happened, but it took us about two and a half hours to make it back to the van.

“An ambulance was called to the site and they said straight away that I’d broken my ribs. It was a pretty scary day.

“I don’t walk too much now. I’m not as healthy as I was, and I can still feel my injuries now.”

‘Totally preventable’

A Health and Safety Executive (HSE) investigation established that cattle with young calves were being kept in a field with a public right of way across it.

Cattle with young calves are known to be protective and unpredictable and can pose a risk to walkers, especially to those with dogs. Farmers should not put cattle with young calves in fields with a public right of way.

Simon Jones, an HSE inspector, said “The serious injuries to Mr Adams sustained when he has attacked and trampled by cattle with their calves was totally preventable.

“Cattle are extremely protective of their calves and even calm cattle can become aggressive if they think the calves may, in any way, be threatened, even by members of the public walking past.

“Farmers should not place cattle with calves in fields where members of the public have a legal right to walk unless appropriate measures are in place such as robust fencing separating cattle from people.

“Had Barry Fowler done this then the incident could not have happened.”