Three gamekeepers who admitted digging up a badger sett while out hunting with dogs have avoided jail after a sheriff accepted they had not intentionally gone to hunt the protected animals.

Scott Collins, 20, who looked after the Duke of Buccleuch's estate for a year and a half, and game-keeping graduate Greig Withers, 22, claimed they had been hunting for rabbits when one of their dogs ran off.

The dog had disappeared down a badgers sett for some time and they began digging it out along with Derek Kelly, 23, who studied game-keeping with Collins, and friend Adam Lennon, 22.

When the dog, a black and tan Patterdale terrier, did emerge it was seriously injured. It is likely it was attacked by a badger defending its territory.

Officers from the Scottish Society for the Protection of Animals arrived, after they were alerted by a woman working nearby who reported hearing animals screeching, and found two freshly dug holes in a badgers sett.

The men were charged with offences under the Protection of Badgers Act, and appeared at Edinburgh Sheriff Court today. (tues sep 11) The incident took place at Dalmahoy Hill Plantation, Balerno, Edinburgh on August 20 last year.

Fiscal depute Dev Kapadia said SSPCA officers arrived to find the four men with spades, a pick axe and a radio transmitter.

The court was told the men had brought the tools in case the dogs became stuck and that transmitters are commonly used for finding dogs that become trapped underground.

While digging they had partially blocked a neighbouring badger sett entrance with earth and stones.

Collins, from West Calder, West Lothian, a former gamekeeping student of the year at his college, had permission from the landowner to hunt rabbits and admitted he knew there may be badgers in the area.

Withers, 22, from Kilmarnock, who owned the terrier, had only bought the young, untrained animal a few weeks before the incident.

Collins, Withers, Kelly and Lennon all admitted interfering with a badger sett by digging into it and obstructing the entrance to a sett.

Collins and Withers were fined £640 each. Kelly, from Bathgate, West Lothian, and Lennon, a labourer from Kilmarnock, were each fined £520. A fifth man, Kevin Andrews, 29, from Hurlford, was allowed to leave the dock after pleading not guilty to similar charges.

Badgers were seen still using the sett six days after the incident.

Sheriff Kenneth Hogg said he would have jailed the men for the maximum six months if he had believed they had intentionally gone to attack badgers. He added that he would allow the SSPCA to decide if the terrier should be destroyed.

"All of you with game-keeping experience should have known much better," said the Sheriff, adding: "I understand all of you have learned a very severe lesson from this."