Widow says farm inspection contributed to death

Rocky Poulson took his own life in September 2023

The widow of a Warwickshire farmer who took his own life has said she believes a critical farm inspection contributed to his death.

Rocky Poulson died in September and his widow Rita Poulson told the BBC about the pressure she believes the inspection caused.

A mistake involving the wrong sort of ear tags in a flock of 18 sheep was picked up in a government inspection. The error would have led to the entire 400 acre farm having all its payments penalised.

Mr Poulson's family are being supported by the Rural Payments Agency, while an inquest into his death will be held in August.

The error flagged during the inspection could have led to Mr Poulson losing thousands of pounds in government payments.

Mrs Poulson said her husband told her "he was a criminal” and was worried he could be sent to jail.

She told the BBC that her husband loved farming and if she asked him if he wanted to go out, he would say "do we have to?" as he would "rather have been farming than doing anything else".

Rita Poulson said she believed the pressures of the inspection contributed to her husband's death

But last year was an extremely challenging one for farmers. The weather made everything difficult and harvest in particular was extremely hard. By the autumn, Mr Poulson was also worried about his health.

The farm was then subject to an inspection by the Rural Payments Agency, the government body that oversees the payment of subsidies to farmers.

Mrs Poulson said the inspection did find one issue - the incorrect tagging of 18 sheep in a small flock on the farm.

But that mistake would have led to the farm being considered to have a problem and to having all its payments penalised, something that could cost the business thousands of pounds.

The inspection report said: "The breach is deemed to be negligent... as a result of failing to take the standard of care to be expected of a competent farmer.”

When Mr Poulson told his wife about the incident, he said he had been told he was an “incompetent farmer”. He was worried he would be sent to prison, something Mrs Poulson said would have been technically possible.

A few days later, Mr Poulson took his own life.

Mrs Poulson is clear she does not blame the inspector who came onto the farm for what happened, but rather the culture around inspections themselves, where people turn up on the farm without any idea of what the farmers have been through.

Family friend and fellow farmer Charles Goadby agrees.

He said there were eight bodies that could arrive on a farm to look around and they were "not looking to see how good a job you are doing, all they are interested in is any small fault they can find".

Charles Goadby said while the inspections were required, they should be less about "fault-finding"

Mr Goadby said inspections were necessary, but he wanted to see efforts to simplify and streamline the process and to change things so it was less about fault-finding and more about support to correct mistakes and make things better.

In a statement, Rural Payments Agency chief executive Paul Caldwell said: “We were deeply saddened to hear of this tragic death. Our condolences go to Mr Poulson’s loved ones, and we have been in contact with his family to offer our support.

“We will continue to work with farmers and farming welfare organisations to further improve our engagement with the farming community."

Mrs Poulson said in this case no-one had understood the pressure her husband was under "and that he was absolutely exhausted" when the inspection happened.

She hopes long term that lessons can be learned and changes made.

If you've been affected by the issues raised in this report, the BBC Action Line has a list of organisations that may be able to help.