Leader: What kind of person kills 50 lambs?

Why a person or persons unknown should have been motivated to remove a heavy concrete well cover at a farm near Much Wenlock, we shall not know until the culprits are caught.

But the consequence of their disgusting and irresponsible actions is the deaths of nearly 50 lambs which plunged through the gap to their deaths.

Their corpses were recovered and laid out on the field near the well. The pictures are too distressing for us to publish.

It is a heavy blow for the farmer. Farmers already have enough to put up with without idiots making things even more difficult.

The mentality of whoever is responsible is beyond belief. And until the full circumstances are known, it has to be possible that their actions are yet more despicable than is already apparent.

The lambs could have followed each other blindly to their collective doom. That is a relative best case and is, incidentally, the scenario that the farmer himself thinks most likely.

The horrible alternative is that some sadist shepherded the lambs into the small gap, gaining some sort of kick out of it.

Farmers in Shropshire and Mid Wales often have public footpaths across their land, and so are forced to admit and tolerate strangers.

This was not a matter of forgetting to shut a gate, or accidentally walking across a field in crop. It was a mass killing that hits directly at the farmer's livelihood.

The deaths of these lambs occurred because somebody broke the code of the countryside, which boils down to leaving it as you found it, without causing harm.

And after something like this happens you can fully understand why some farmers have a reputation for being less welcoming than they might be to those who tramp across their land.