A retired couple were fined for fraud after buying battery eggs and selling them outside their home as being from their own free-range chickens.
The Dorset couple bought 12,000 eggs and passed them off as free-range after their own free-range chickens stopped laying last year. They deserve no sympathy.
Intensive battery-farmed eggs is a sensitive issue for many consumers. Those who buy free-range eggs usually do so as part of a considered purchase. There are those who believe the quality of the farming is relative to the quality of the product, and will buy free-range as a premium product. Even more common are those who buy free-range for ethical reasons due to the better treatment of chickens.
The couple, Stephen and Anne Hobbs, of Three Legged Cross, Dorset, can consider themselves fortunate they were fined £300 each in addition to £1,178 court costs. Their age should not be relevant to their defence. They misled those who made the sensitive decision to buy free-range eggs and wanted to buy farm fresh products.
