Illegal horse semen import

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Ciss

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Anyone pick up on this?

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/nhs-funds-used-to-import-horse-sperm-1055691.html

Its a fuller account of the story that appears in the And Finally section of today's Horse and Hound.

What on earth was she thinking of (apart from presumably saving money at the tax payers expense <sigh>) and how on earth did she think that the studbooks would not pick up on it when she came to try to register the foals without a correct record of importantion and insemination?

Or am I just being niave?

BTW, as no mention was made in the article about the HUGE risk of EVA etc such an action creates -- and becuase the importation will not have been picked up by the DEFRA TRACES system which checks these things -- I have let Donna Yates know as almost certainly the NHS won't have!

Let's see what happens now.
 
I think she had an article written about some of her horses in the IDS magazine not long ago? might not be the same person however?
 
Aside from the seriousness of this story, one thing did strike me:

"a senior manager in the UK's largest NHS trust diverted NHS funds to buy the horse sperm that was then used to breed mares."

How has she managed to find the secret formula to breed only mares? That would be so useful for me as we do not have any colts/geldings and I've just had to leave it down to fate and hope for fillies..... silly me

Oh the joys of journalists who don't know what they're talking about......
 
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If it really was 100's of 1000's of pounds then she must have been doing it on a very large scale! Find that a little hard to believe.

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Well, Majic's link shows that she does have quite a number of high class mares and if she has been doing it for several seasons or (even worse perhaps) selling the semen on then the money does soon mount up I suppose.

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And very tenuous link to 2nd part of story IMO.

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Totally agree and must apologise to those concerned as I have only just noticed it. I do not understand why they put that it. Please ignore it, it has nothing to do with the main story.
 
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Isn't that a HHO'er?

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we have a southsidestud - which is different, I think

[/ QUOTE ]just to confirm im nothing to do with this or connected in anyway! strangley enough though i had a withheld no ring me whilst i was at the AES grading looking for southfield stud and the owner and wondered if i knew them or could give any info? which i found strange obviously i dont know who they are though i have been on there website as they have some nice stuff though there web has gone now www.bestbredhorses.com
 
How bizarre. The article is VERY fuzzy on the details, isn't it? Was the money used to buy the semen? That sounds MOST peculiar; I wasn't aware the NHS bought semen at all so how could one pass horse semen off as human?
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Was the money used to import it, or was the NHS as a front to the semen through customs?
I'm very confuzzled. If someone would like to explain to me very slowly I'd be most grateful
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the NHS uses semen from donors for ivf etc. This woman (allegedly) raised false invoices claiming they were for importing human semen when it was actually horse semen from studs around the world - which she then carted home and used on her mares. The false invoices were raised to cover the theft of the money from the NHS.

I am surprised that the stud owners did not realise that the NHS was the one being billed for the semen and not a private stud or individual. Also that it took so long for this to come to light. I never cease to be amazed at the nerve of some people to be honest - founding your stud using stolen funds and then proclaiming yourself to be producer of top performance horses must be a bit hollow surely? or is that just me being naive and honest?
 
For reference, you can still access some pages from the site using the "Cached" pages from Google, here:

http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&amp...est+bred+horses

If the allegations are true, it's pretty amazing that she has managed to spend "hundreds of thousands" of NHS funds on semen without anyone figuring it out.

Do we know if she had the semen delivered "officially", or if she actually drove over and brought back the semen herself? Someone told me the latter was true, in which case EVA etc would have been a massive risk!
 
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Do we know if she had the semen delivered "officially", or if she actually drove over and brought back the semen herself? Someone told me the latter was true, in which case EVA etc would have been a massive risk!

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If she had done it officially, either as a direct purchase or through a semen agent, then presumably the TRACES system would have picked up the name of NHS as importer and queried it, but presumably they did not so one can only imagine she brought it in directly -- and then did the insemination herself to make sure that the vet / technician didn't query its source either.

DEFRA do now know about this (I have a feeling they didn't before) so it will be interesting to see what happens at that end.
 
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That sounds MOST peculiar; I wasn't aware the NHS bought semen at all so how could one pass horse semen off as human?
confused.gif
Was the money used to import it, or was the NHS as a front to the semen through customs?


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Probably both! I assume the NHS DOES use semen for IVF (though why they'd need to import it I don't know - there must be THOUSANDS of Uni students who'd be happy to spend an hour with a porn mag for a tenner!
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) But it's typical of the appalling management of the NHS - no bloody controls, no proper audits, - and not just the NHS!!
 
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