An animal rights activist accused of taking lambs from the King’s Sandringham Estate told a court that Charles was targeted because he presents himself as “an environmentalist and an animal lover”.
Rosa Sharkey, 26, said the monarch was chosen because sheep were not his “primary source of income”. She and her two co-defendants wanted to spark a national debate about animal farming and its environmental consequences, she added.
Giving evidence on the second day of the trial at Norwich Crown Court, Sharkey said travelling to Sandringham with Rose Patterson, 37, and Sarah Foy, 26, was “the only way that we could have ensured that any sheep were saved”.
Sharkey told the jury that the group had discussed how best to save the sheep while considering the potential effect on the farmer. “We discussed wanting to save sheep and the best way to do that,” she said. “One of the things we were considering was the impact it would have on the farmer and knowing that farming lives are not easy.”
She added: “That was the key reason why we went for the King’s farm, as it’s not his primary source of income.”
Sharkey described the King as an “influential person” who “may be able to change”. The group, she said, wanted their actions to have a broader effect and encourage discussion across the country.
“The King says he is an environmentalist and an animal lover,” she told the court. “I do think that the reality of sheep farming is quite hidden away, and what they face in the slaughterhouse and the impact on the land are not actually things that he’d agree with.”
Sharkey said she grew up in Levens, Cumbria, an area surrounded by sheep farms where lambing events are held each year.
She told the court that 2015 was “really the point at which I felt unsafe” after Storm Desmond caused a death in nearby Kendal, cut power at her father’s home and flooded her mother’s house.
Her mother took her to environmental rallies, while Sharkey later joined university campaigns in Brighton, where she graduated with a degree in international development in 2024.
Rose Patterson, 37, and Sarah Foy and Rosa Sharkey, both 26, are accused of stealing three lambs from the King’s Sandringham Estate
The day after the alleged theft, the trio stood outside Windsor Castle holding signs reading “I rescued the King’s sheep” before presenting themselves at Slough police station
Sharkey, who lives in Brighton, said she first became aware of campaign group Animal Rising in 2022, when activists took several beagle puppies from a facility. She subsequently became involved with the organisation.
Explaining her environmental concerns, she told the court that she had witnessed the loss of forests in Cumbria and believed the land had “lost its ability to be resilient… and cope with rainfall”.
Sharkey said the group carried out reconnaissance at Appleton Farm on the Sandringham Estate before arriving at about 8am on May 24, 2023.
They spent several hours in a field helping the lambs become accustomed to their presence before placing three of the animals in a lorry prepared with hay and straw.
The lambs were taken to a sanctuary known to one of Patterson’s friends, although its location was kept secret from the three defendants.
“I didn’t want to be not able to tell them [police] everything I knew,” Sharkey said.
“I knew if I did… the lambs would be taken back for slaughter.”
She said she and her two co-defendants then travelled to Windsor, where Animal Rising photographed them holding signs reading “I rescued the King’s sheep” and “This is how we love animals”. The group later published the images online.
Sharkey said no action was taken against them during the publicity stunt, adding: ‘There were police officers at the gate but they were keeping a steady focus on external things.’
The next day they handed themselves in at the local police station.
Patterson said only three lambs had been taken from Sandringham because there was no room for more at the sanctuary.
She learned subsequently that they were ‘socialising with other animals and had made friends with goats’.
With a catch in her throat, she told the jury she’d like to rescue far more but there weren’t the ‘resources’.
Patterson, who is the director of Animal Rising and holds a master of science degree in animal welfare science, ethics and law from Winchester University, said animals had been ‘my life, my profession, my education’.
Protest group Animal Rising released footage of the activists at Appleton Farm in West Newton, Norfolk
Her career has included volunteering at sanctuaries and animal shelters, investigating zoos where tigers are made to perform, and studying the behaviour of wild monkeys in Africa.
Patterson said she had also ‘stood outside slaughterhouses and heard the screams of animals as they go to their deaths’.
Lambs destined for slaughter, she told the jury, were stunned with electrodes shaped ‘like tongs’ that are put on the head but this was often done by people who were ‘not well trained’.
‘If they’re not placed on the right part of the head, often they’re not rendered unconscious and end up being paralysed while going to slaughter fully awake,’ said Patterson, who grew up in Harrogate, North Yorkshire, and now lives with her husband in London.
She also claimed the scale of the animal industry meant there were frequent violations of standards but ‘very few prosecutions’.
Asked by Dingle Clark, prosecuting, whether farm workers would have concluded sheep were being stolen if they had spotted the women, she said she didn’t know what people would have thought ‘of three women in pink T-shirts’.
‘All our actions were honest. We were doing it quite openly,’ she added.
Foy admitted the incident had been planned, including making the signs the women displayed outside Windsor Castle.
Told by Mr Clark that she had taken the lambs from their ‘lawful owner’, she said it had been a hot day and there was no water for them.
She added: ‘We rescued them from neglect or from being killed.’
Foy, of South Normanton, Derbyshire, who works for Animal Rising as a volunteer support co-ordinator, said she had worked for McDonald’s after leaving school at 16.
During this period, she learned about animal farming by watching YouTube videos and became ‘fascinated’ with the industry, including the high number of suicides among farmers.
She said: ‘No aspect of the farm system actually makes sense. Every part of it needs change.’
The court heard yesterday that the value of the loss of the lambs to the farm was between £400 and £500.
Gordon Robinson, who was head stockman from 2017 to 2024, said the farm had been inspected three times in five years by officials from the Department for Environment, food and Rural Affairs and had been confirmed ‘compliant’.
In a statement read out by Mr Clark, Mr Robinson said: ‘We unapologetically rear forest-fed lambs to sell for consumption.’
Lambs are reared until they are ready for slaughter ‘between 16 and 52 weeks of age’, while ewes would be mated at around 18 months old and ‘will typically have four to six flocks in their breeding life’.
Some lambs ‘are kept for breeding, not slaughter’, he added.
Mr Robinson said: ‘The three people who took the lambs did not have permission to be on the land or have permission to take the lambs.’
In his closing speech, Mr Clark told the jury: ‘One might have sympathy with the views of some of the defendants, but they are all controversial views.’
It might be that farming practices should change, he added, but there are ‘plenty of ways to change the law [and] plenty of ways to campaign lawfully’.
What the defendants didn’t have, he concluded, was permission to ‘take property that belongs to other people’.
The Sandringham Estate consists of 5,930 acres of farmland, with an additional 9,880 acres rented by tenant farmers. The King owns 3,000 sheep.
The trial continues.
