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A man accused of repeatedly breaching a court order banning him from being within 50m of horses stated he was “tortured” by the police and claimed that an officer fabricated evidence against him.

Giving evidence on the second day of his trial, 54-year-old Thomas Tony Price said he had been left with mental health problems after being harassed by the police for a decade.

Speaking from the witness box, he said: “I’ve had a lot of problems with the police.”

Price denies breaching a Criminal Behaviour Order on March 29 or 30 and April 16 last year and he is on trial at Cardiff Crown Court.

The order was made at Cardiff Magistrates’ Court in December 2016, banning him from herding horses or being within 50 metres of horses on public or private land, apart from his own land.

Price said he had been involved with horses since he was a child and, asked if he owned any Welsh cobs, he replied: “I did in the past.”

He told the court he bought Swn-Y-Mor Stables in Wick, Vale of Glamorgan, about 10 years ago and used to keep horses there.

The defendant stated he stopped keeping horses when the order was made and the horses there at the time of the alleged offences belonged to his sons and daughters.

Price said he was keeping sheep and chickens “as a hobby” and added: “I haven’t got any horses.”

He told the court there were 20 or 30 horses at the stables at the time. Asked by prosecutor Paul Hewitt if there could have been up to 50 horses there, he replied: “There could have been sir.”

Former neighbour Sian Thomas George said she heard horses “in a frenzy” cantering down the lane outside her home in March last year and recognised the defendant herding them.

Defence barrister John Ryan asked: “The evidence is that you were seen herding horses on March 29 or 30 last year. Were you?” Price replied: “No sir.”

The defendant suggested Ms Thomas George may have seen his son or son-in-law and thought it was him. He said his sons tended to wear a flat cap and green coat, like him.

Asked where he was on the day of the alleged breach, Price said he went to visit a friend in Penderyn and helped him to fit a hay rack.

He told the court he stayed there until it got dark, then went back to his partner’s home in Pencoed.

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Police Community Support Officer Angela Stone said she recognised Price herding horses on Glan-Y-Mor Lane on April 16.

The defendant stated he did not see her and suggested she had “fabricated evidence” against him. Asked why he thought that, he replied: “Because I was not there. She made it up.”

He said he went back to his friend’s house on the day in question to buy chickens from him.

Price added: “I have had a lot of problems with the police. They have given me mental health problems.

“They have tortured me badly for the last nine or 10 years. I get harassed all the time by the police.”

The defendant went to the police station in Bridgend as a voluntary attendee on June 6 last year gave a prepared statement saying he was “fully aware” of the Criminal Behaviour Order.

His statement said: “I have stuck to the terms of the order completely. I can say with absolute certainty I have not been involved in herding horses.

“I can only imagine that the witnesses have mistaken me for other members of my family who are very similar in appearance to me.”

Price, of Glan-Y-Mor Lane in Wick, denied three counts of breaching a Criminal Behaviour Order. Count two, relating to April 1, was dropped and he now faces two remaining counts.

The trial, before Judge David Wynn Morgan, continues.