Jodie Marsh wins fight with council to keep lemurs
Jodie Marsh should be allowed to keep lemurs at her private animal sanctuary, a judge has ruled.
The former glamour model fought Uttlesford District Council in court after it refused her application for a wild animal licence in July 2024.
Concerns had been raised about her taking a meerkat from her farm near Braintree, Essex, to the pub, but Ms Marsh insisted she was being targeted by online trolls.
District Judge Christopher Williams said the 46-year-old was "someone who very much cares for animals".
He ordered the local authority to pay her £19,641 in costs at Chelmsford Magistrates' Court.
Neighbours of Fripps Farm, which Ms Marsh founded in Lindsell in 2020, attended several hearings to voice their opposition against her.
Judge Williams said there was "considerable animosity" between all involved.
Speaking to the BBC outside court, Ms Marsh said: "I hope that shuts my trolls up once and for all."
Ms Marsh, who appeared in the ITV series Essex Wives in 2002, took the council to court after it did not allow her to adopt eight ring-tailed lemurs.
She already cared for alpacas, emus and reptiles at the 3.5-acre (1.4ha) site and wept in court as the judge ruled in her favour.
Judge Williams said: "There is no evidence she has mismanaged any animals or caused any animals harm."
He criticised the council for providing "completely contradictory" views and going against reports stating Ms Marsh was a suitable keeper.
The judge said Dr Stephen Philp, a vet hired by the authority to make a report, had relied on photographs sent to him of the farm, with no certainty they had not been edited.
He also questioned why the authority said the lemurs would be too noisy, despite it admitting this was "impossible to measure".
"The decision of Uttlesford District Council was wrong and, in light of evidence, it continues to be wrong," Judge Williams added.
He said Ms Marsh was "passionate about the care and treatment of the animals in her care".
Ms Marsh told the BBC she was "so happy and so grateful" with the ruling.
"I'm just really sad that it has to come to this - It's a complete waste of time and effort," she said.
"As the judge said, the decision was wrong in the first place.
"I am just over the moon. He categorically proved in there I am a suitable person to rescue animals and that all I care about is the safety and health and wellbeing of the animals."
An Uttlesford District Council spokesperson said councillors refused to allow Ms Marsh a wild animal licence after "careful consideration".
They added: "Whilst we are disappointed with the ruling today, the court has taken a fresh look at it and reached a different conclusion, which we fully accept."
Follow Essex news on BBC Sounds, Facebook, Instagram and X.
Council feared backlash if Jodie Marsh kept lemurs
Ex-model tells court why she took meerkat to pub
Ex-model 'not strange' for sharing bed with meerkat
Jodie Marsh: OnlyFans helps pay for my animal farm
Uttlesford District Council
Fripps Farm
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
27 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Held at gunpoint: BBC team detained by Israeli forces in southern Syria
On the morning of 9 May, I was part of a BBC Arabic team which left the Syrian capital, Damascus, for the southern province of Deraa. From there we planned to go to the frontier with the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. We wanted to get close to the Syrian territory that has been seized by the Israeli military since December, when Israel's prime minister said it was taking control indefinitely of a demilitarised buffer zone and neighbouring areas following the fall of Bashar al-Assad's regime. We were a team of seven - myself (a British citizen), two Iraqi BBC staff, and four Syrians - three freelancers and one BBC cameraman. Israel says it struck near Syria palace over violence in Druze areas First Druze crossing in 50 years as Israel courts allies in Syria Israeli strikes in Syria a challenge to Turkey We were filming near one of the UN Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF) observation posts, close to the town of al-Rafeed, when an official from the UN told us that the Israeli side had inquired about our identity and had been informed that we were a BBC crew. We next drove north towards Quneitra city, which has been located inside the buffer zone since a 1974 disengagement agreement between Syria and Israel, which captured the Golan during the 1967 Middle East war. About 200m (660ft) away from the city, an unguarded checkpoint blocked the road. To the side of the checkpoint we spotted Merkava tanks, one of which was flying an Israeli flag. From a nearby tower, two Israeli soldiers were watching us - one of them through binoculars - and my colleague held his BBC ID up for them to see. The BBC has complained to the Israeli military about what happened next to my team, but it has not yet received a response. A minute after we started filming in the area, a white car approached from the other side of the checkpoint. Four Israeli soldiers got out of the car and surrounded us. They pointed their rifles at our heads and ordered us to place the camera on the side of the road. I tried to explain that we were a BBC crew, but things escalated unexpectedly quickly. I was able to send a message to my BBC colleagues in London saying that we had been stopped by the Israeli military before our phones and all equipment were confiscated, more Israeli soldiers arrived in a Humvee military vehicle, and our car was thoroughly searched. The soldiers escorted us through a barrier into the city of Quneitra and stopped at the crossing point that separates Quneitra from the occupied Golan. There, the soldiers began reviewing the footage as we sat in our car, while one pointed his rifle at my head from metres away. After more than two hours, one of the soldiers asked me to step out of the car and speak on a mobile phone. I didn't know who the person on the line was. He spoke broken Arabic. He asked why we were filming Israeli military positions. I told him I was a British BBC journalist and explained to him the nature of our work. I returned to my car, and the rifle was again aimed at my head. After another hour of waiting, one more vehicle arrived. A group of security personnel got out of the car carrying blindfolds and plastic zip ties and asked me to step out first. The lead officer, who spoke fluent Palestinian Arabic dialect, took me by the hand towards one of the rooms at the crossing point which were previously used by the Syrian army. The floor was strewn with broken glass and rubbish. He told me that they would treat me differently - no handcuffs, nor blindfold - unlike the rest of my team. I was in shock. I asked why they were doing this when they knew we were a BBC crew. He said he wanted to help get us out quickly and that we had to comply with their instructions. Moments later, another officer entered and told me to take off all my clothes except my underwear. I initially refused, but they insisted, and threatened me, so I complied. He inspected even inside my underwear, both front and back, searched my clothes, then told me to put them back on and started interrogating me - including personal questions about my children and their ages. When they eventually let me out of the room, I witnessed the horrific scene of my team members, tied up and blindfolded. I pleaded to the officer to release them, and he promised to do so after the interrogations. They were taken one by one to the same room for strip search and questioning. They returned with their hands still bound but not blindfolded. The team's interrogation lasted more than two hours, during which all our phones and laptops were examined, and many photos - including personal ones - were deleted. The officer threatened us with worse consequences if we approached the frontier from the Syrian side again, and said that they know everything about us and would track us down if any hidden or un-deleted photo was ever published. About seven hours after our detention - it was past 21:00 - we were taken by two vehicles, one in front of our car and the other behind us, to a rural area about 2km (1.2 miles) outside Quneitra. There, the vehicles stopped and a bag containing our phones was thrown towards us before the vehicles left. Lost in the dark with no signal, no internet and no idea where we were, we kept driving until we reached a small village. A group of children pointed us to the highway, warning that a wrong turn could draw Israeli fire. Ten tense minutes later, we found the road. Forty-five minutes after that, we were in Damascus. Israel demands complete demilitarisation of southern Syria 'We just need peace': BBC speaks to Syrians watching Israel's incursion Israel seizes Golan buffer zone after Syrian troops leave positions
Yahoo
3 hours ago
- Yahoo
India set to count its population after a six-year delay
After a six-year delay, India is finally set to count its population in a two-phase census that will conclude in 2027, the government has announced. India's decennial census is one of the world's largest administrative exercises and provides critical data for planning welfare schemes, allocating federal funds, drawing electoral boundaries and making key policy decisions. It was originally due in 2021, but has been delayed several times since. The last census was conducted in 2011. Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government had initially cited the Covid-19 pandemic as the main reason but critics have questioned what has taken so long to resume the exercise. On Wednesday, India's home ministry said in a statement that the much-awaited census will be conducted in two phases, with 1 March 2027 as the reference date. For the snow-bound Himalayan regions, which includes the states of Uttarakhand, and Himachal Pradesh, and the region of Ladakh and Jammu and Kashmir, the reference date will be 1 October 2026. It did not, however, specify when the survey would actually begin. For the first time, the government will also collect the caste details - a politically and socially sensitive issue in India - of all its citizens, the statement added. The last time caste was officially counted as part of a national census was in 1931, during British colonial rule. India's census is conducted under the Census Act, 1948, which provides a legal framework for conducting the exercise, but does not specify a fixed schedule for when the census must be conducted or when its results must be published. In 2020, India was set to begin the first phase of the census - in which housing data is collected - when the pandemic hit, following which the government postponed the exercise. In the years since, the government further delayed the exercise several times without any explanation, even as life returned to normal. Experts have spoken of the consequences this could have on the world's most populous country - such as people being excluded from welfare schemes, and the incorrect allocation of resources. "The census is not simply a count of the number of people in a country. It provides invaluable data needed to make decisions at a micro level," Professor KP Kannan, a development economist, had told the BBC in 2023. Follow BBC News India on Instagram, YouTube, Twitter and Facebook.
Yahoo
3 hours ago
- Yahoo
BBC tells parents: Speak to your child in mother tongue before English
BBC parenting advice tells families to speak to children in their mother tongue before using English. The broadcaster has launched a new service, called CBeebies Parenting, to support families raising young children. It offers advice on subjects such as buying nappies, reading bedtime stories, cooking meals , and accessing child benefit payments. And its advice on developing language skills urges parents to use their preferred language before English. In an instructional video, Monal Gajjar, a speech and language therapist, says: 'Generally, we encourage parents to talk to their child in the language they are most competent in, their social language. 'So if Bengali is your home language, then use that language with your children.' Ms Gajjar explains that this will help the children build a relationship with their family, and provide a solid foundation for 'an additional language, such as English'. The BBC material explains that it 'is increasingly common for one parent to speak one language and another parent to speak another language' and for them to use 'a common language such as English … to interact with each other'. Additional videos offer insights into introducing children to speaking Polish, Urdu, Punjabi and Gujarati. The launch of this material on the CBeebies Parenting website comes after the 2021 census revealed that 8.9 per cent of people in England and Wales speak a language other than English as their main language. It also comes amid concerns that too many migrants do not have a good grasp of English. Last month, Sir Keir Starmer unveiled plans to make sure migrants speak fluent English if they want to remain in Britain. The level of English required is to be raised from the equivalent of GCSE to the equivalent of A Level. The BBC's guidance takes into account increased levels of bilingualism. Case studies are offered in a Parenting Life section that cover 'raising a multicultural, multilingual child' and 'LGBTQ+ adoption'. Advice is offered on how to create meals on a tight budget, and how to manage screen time for young children, noting that 'there can be benefits to your child's screen time'. The BBC will also offer a Cbeebies Parenting WhatsApp service which parents can contact for advice Patricia Hidalgo, the BBC director of children's and education, said: 'We know parents and carers love the support they get from CBeebies as a safe space for their small children to learn through play. 'And we also know becoming a parent can be an overwhelming time when it comes to finding the right advice. 'So, we wanted to help parents and carers to find expert advice and support in one place from when they are parents-to-be, right through to when their little ones are starting school. We have everything they need to build the virtual village it takes to raise a child.' CBeebies Parenting will offer a Parenting Helpline podcast hosted by celebrity parents Holly Hagan-Blyth, known for starring in Geordie Shore, and Charlie Hedges. Videos on the CBeebies Parenting site include a number of testimonials from other celebrities, including Joe Wicks and Dani Dyer, talking through their approach to raising children. In September, Baroness Benjamin, who as Floella Benjamin pioneered BBC children's TV, will guest star in a new title for youngsters, CBeebies House. Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
