Judge silences cockerel's dawn chorus

A JUDGE yesterday ordered Corky the cockerel to be silenced after a row which split a north Devon hamlet.

During a two-day hearing at Taunton county court, Judge Malcolm Cotterill heard how John Ritchings was kept awake by the bird's early morning crowing at a hen house owned by his neighbour Margerie Johns. Judge Cotterill granted an injunction forbidding her from allowing the bird to crow between midnight and 7am so as to cause a noise nuisance.

The judge appealed for an end to hostility in the bird's home of Stoke, north Devon. Costs estimated at pounds 5,000 were awarded against Mrs Johns but damages, which the judge proposed at pounds 250, were waived by the plaintiff.