“In each of the cases, the accused allegedly hired the sheep from the complainants via contracts of two to five years and when it was time to give the sheep back he had sold them,” Greyling said.
He said he had been investigating stock theft in Cradock since 1986 but had never come across a case of this kind before, where a commercial farmer was accused of stealing thousands of sheep through an established farming strategy.
Keevy appeared in a Somerset East court a month-and-a-half ago on charges of stock theft.
He was not asked to plead and the case was postponed for further investigation.
