A FORMER chairman of Devon National Farmers? Union has been told he could face a prison sentence after pleading guilty to causing unnecessary suffering to a flock of sheep. Dartmoor hill farmer John Dawe, aged 56, of Merton Villas, Bere Ferrers, admitted failing to treat his sick animals. He also pleaded guilty at Plymouth Magistrates Court to failing to comply with regulations and bury the carcasses of nine sheep. John Wyatt, prosecuting for the RSPCA, told magistrates that a Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs vet and an RSPCA inspector visited Mr Dawe?s land at Wastor, near Lydford, on January 5 this year. In a field they found 27 sheep suffering from foot rot, a condition which had left the animals lame with the lesions on their feet giving off a foul smell. He said: ?They were effectively walking on bone when the horn, which forms the sole of the hoof, rotted away.? Two other sheep were found to be suffering from sheep scab. Mr Wyatt said the sheep were in a very poor condition ?and had been for quite some time?. He also said that some of the animals had heavy fleeces and had probably not been sheared during the 2004 season. He said there were up to 200 sheep in different fields in the area belonging to Mr Dawe and that as the vet and the inspector walked over the land they found the carcasses of nine sheep in various stages of decomposition. He said by not treating the sick sheep, Mr Dawe, a farmer for more than 40 years, had failed to ensure the welfare of his flock by allowing them to suffer unnecessarily. He applied for the court to disqualify Mr Dawe from keeping sheep in the future. But Mr Dawe?s solicitor, Roger Page, told magistrates that his client now had no sheep but farmed other animals. He said the charges related to a period of between December 21 last year and January 5 this year when Mr Dawe had faced ?various crises? in connection with his farming. This included one of his farmhands being off sick, an urgency to carry out TB tests on his animals, the death of a neighbour farmer, a water main which needed replacing, plus the Christmas and New Year period. He said: ?He had too much on his plate. This led to him with not enough time in the day to fulfil all his duties as a farmer.? He said Mr Dawe had a previous ?stainless character? and had been chairman of the Devon National Farmers? Union, from 2003 to 2004, and was a former chairman of the Dartmoor Hill Farm Committee. Mr Dawe, he said, had been ?mortified? by having to come to court. Magistrates called for reports on Mr Dawe before sentencing him on July 14. Chairman of the bench Diana Greene told him that he had admitted very serious charges. She said they had taken into account the scale and magnitude of the neglect and that he should have known the likely result of that neglect through his experience. She said the court was keeping all sentencing options open, including custody.