Shop owner blames Devil after dumping sheep heads in layby (From Oxford Mail)

Shop owner blames Devil after dumping sheep heads in layby

7:00am Tuesday 5th March 2013 in News

A FOOD shop owner who dumped bags of sheep heads by a roadside did it because the “devil got inside him”.

Qasim Ali, from Cowley, Oxford, admitted to Oxford magistrates to flytipping black bags containing the sheep heads.

He told the Oxford Mail he “lost control” of his body and had to dump the bags, but didn’t know there were sheep heads inside.

The 30-year-old said: “The smell was bad. I did not control myself. Something pushed me to do it.

“Something just told me I had to get rid of the bag. The devil. I didn’t know what was inside it. I felt something pushing me to do it and lost control of my body.

“I have never felt like that before. It lasted 10 or 15 minutes. I know it was the wrong thing.

“They found some paper in the bag with my address and my name.

“Everything is okay now, I feel back to normal.”

Ali, who owns Oxford Food Centre in London Road, Headington, Oxford, said the sheep heads came from the butcher’s in his shop.

He was being driven to a delivery in a south Oxfordshire village when he said the smell made him ask the driver to stop.

He dumped five bags in a layby in Besselsleigh Road, Wootton, near Abingdon, on June 26 last year.

He was fined £750 for flytipping, and ordered to pay £500 costs, and a £15 victims’ surcharge on February 18.

Vale of White Horse District Council prosecuted when their environmental warden Colin Marshall went to investigate the report of flytipping and found sheep heads in one of the five bags.

Mr Marshall said it was one of the most unusual cases they have come across.

Roger Cox, cabinet member for health and housing, added: “We are cracking down on all cases of flytipping and this particular case was a potential harm to the public. “We want to show that we are not taking flytipping lightly and will be coming down hard on those who choose to do this.”

The driver of the car said he was unaware Ali was dumping the food waste and thought he was moving wood and books in the back of the van.