WILDLIFE groups have welcomed the decision to cut a European cash subsidy to a Scots farmer after his gamekeeper was convicted of trying to kill birds of prey.

James McDougal is the first UK landowner to be hit with the fine for an environmental crime on his estate even though the legislation came into force four years ago.

The landmark punishment has been praised as a step in the right direction to support the Scottish Government's move to crack down on illegal poisoning of birds of prey.

George Aitken, 56, who works as a gamekeeper on Blythe Farm near Lauder in Berwickshire, set traps holding live pigeons and placed dead pheasants laced with poisons on moorland close to the Southern Upland Way.

He pleaded guilty to eight wildlife crime offences at Selkirk Sheriff Court in June last year and was sentenced to 220 hours community service.

It has now been revealed that the Scottish Government has cut almost £8000 from the European farming grants to Aitken's employer for failing to protect local wildlife. Yesterday Stuart Housden, director of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds Scotland, said: "We welcome the provisions of the Code of Good Agricultural and Environmental Condition being applied to cases involving wildlife crime.

"We are surprised that, according to the Scottish Government, only one case so far has been dealt with in this way but we hope that in future the determination expressed by the present administration to bring this sort of crime to an end will see these regulations enforced more rigorously and consistently."

The Scottish Government said it had docked £7919 from last year's single farm payment and beef calf scheme payments to Mr McDougal, who runs a large cattle and sheep-farming business near Lauder.

Under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981, the maximum fine for a wildlife crime is £5000.

Mr McDougal, one of Scotland's highest EU agricultural subsidy recipients, employs Aitken as a gamekeeper on a pheasant shoot he runs for friends on his land.