A horsewatch scheme has just started in the kingdom - giving the equestrian community a direct link with the police.

 

Lily, a piebald filly, was neary killed last year when her neck was slashed in a deliberate attack when she was just three days old.  Her injuries are pictured above.

 

Hugh Mullen, Lily's Owner, said: "I'm totally disgusted with the whole lot of it, totally disgusted. She was only a baby you know, three-days-old.

 

"How anybody could do that I just can't understand. She was in a bad, bad state, she'd lost a lot of blood, if I hadn't come up to check her she would have been dead."

 

Horse maiming cases like this are rare, but some go unreported - and most are undetected. Horsewatch has proved successful in England, where there are some serious problems, especially with the theft of animals.

 

The scheme was introduced north of the border at the end of last year. It is hoped this preventative approach will help to keep equestrian crime in Scotland at bay.

 

Constable Ian Laing is hoping to change that in the Fife area after being appointed the Kingdom's Horsewatch co-ordinator.

 

PC Laing said: "What we do is gather any information on incidents that occur in Fife relating to horse crime, anything at all be it theft, obviously horse mutilation which we're looking at today.

 

"I would then pass those details on to the central co-ordinator who covers the whole of Scotland and she passes that information out by email to people who have actually signed up to Horsewatch throughout Scotland so they can take precautions and ensure that they don't find themselves in the same position."