Farmer says Surrey police faced "extraordinary" situation with escaped cow

A farmer from the South East thinks officers who were dealing with an escaped cow in Surrey faced a "difficult and extraordinary” situation.

There has been outrage over a video showing a police car hitting a calf in Staines-upon-Thames on Friday (14 June).

Surrey Police confirmed the driver of the car has been removed from frontline duties.

Hugh Broom, National Farmers' Union's South East livestock chairman, says it was shocking to see.

He said: “It was pretty shocking to see. That said though, this was a really extraordinary set of circumstances to have an animal like this in such a built-up urban environment, so stressed out and worrying members of the public. It was an extraordinary situation and it's certainly something I wouldn't want to be in, in terms of trying to work out how to manage and how to best capture that animal.

“It's very easy saying, could we have done better? It's really easy to be an armchair pundit but unless you're on the ground there on Friday night trying to work out what to do next, I think it's a very extraordinary situation.”

Hugh continued: “What is good news is that the police are going to carry out a full detailed investigation into what went wrong and how they potentially could have done things better and I think that's probably the right thing to do.

“As farmers we work really closely with the police, helping them training some of their staff and also helping to act as a means of communication between the police and other animal keepers. So, if a situation like this happened again going forward, one of the really smart things to be able to do would be to, as soon as the animals are seen, alert all animal keepers locally so that people can hopefully get the animal back to its field before it manages to get down to the high street.”