A DAIRY farmer suffered a broken arm when he was attacked by a rampaging bull on a Hampshire farm.

Clyde Jones was forced to kill the bull after it attacked him on an estate near Ringwood.

The farmer had been travelling to a field on Bisterne Estate to feed the three-year-old bull when it went on a rampage, knocking him down.

Now the owner of the estate, Deputy Lord Lieutenant of Hampshire, Hallam Mills has revealed he has sold all the older bulls and said the public have nothing to worry about.

He said: “The situation was dealt with very quickly, it is standard procedure on a dairy farm to kill a bull if he becomes vicious which it what we have done.

“The bull was shot humanely.”

The estate is home to more than 550 cows and two separate herds of young and old bulls.

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Brixeys Farm

Mr Mills added: “We have now sold all the older bulls as we are not sure if their age was an issue and let the buyer know what happened with this individual incident and the younger herd will be responsible for the cows.

“This has never happened before, the bull hadn't previously shown any signs of aggression but as soon as we heard of the problem we handled it.”

Bisterne Estate and Brixeys Farm are on the outskirts of the town and have a public footpath running through the grounds.

Mr Mills, pictured below, added: “The public is not and was never at risk, I must stress this. The bull was nowhere near the footpath or fields surrounding the footpath and was kept in a field surrounded by electric fencing.

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“It is perfectly safe to walk through the farm and estate.

“Clyde was very unlucky and I think quite angry that it happened, but the incident was out of the blue and we have dealt with it.”

A spokesperson for the National Farmers Union, said: “There is always an inherent risk when you're dealing with large animals and as they are herd animals. If they are separated from a group or in this case cows, they could become quite unpredictable.

“Our members have to risk assess every situation, they have to be very experienced but sometimes this can happen, we have not heard of a bull becoming more aggressive with age but it is up to an owner to deal with that situation.”