Glenn Brown seen in a still from the RSPB surveillance film

A gamekeeper has been ordered to pay costs of £10,000 and carry out 100 hours community service for attempting to trap and kill birds of prey.

Glenn Brown was convicted at Chesterfield Magistrates Court of seven offences under the Wildlife and Countryside Act after a 10-day hearing.

Brown set a trap using a live pigeon inside a cage on the grouse-shooting estate on Howden Moors – land owned by the National Trust but leased to a third party.

The gamekeeper was arrested by Derbyshire Police in May last year after a covert surveillance operation by an undercover team from the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds on the land in the Upper Derwent Valley in the north of the Peak District national park.

Brown, 39, of Old Henry’s Schoolhouse, Derwent Valley, has been head gamekeeper on the estate since 1996.

The RSPB investigations team filmed the gamekeeper using a cage trap baited with a live domestic pigeon. Although cage traps are legal in certain circumstances for predator control, it is unlawful both to use a pigeon as bait and to capture birds of prey.

The RSPB said it had become increasingly concerned in the past decade about the poor breeding success of birds of prey in the northern Peak District. In 2006, the Society produced the report Peak Malpractice which outlined its concerns in relation to goshawks and peregrine falcons on the north-east Peak moors.

Since then, the breeding success of both species has collapsed in the adjacent Derwent Valley, prompting the undercover investigation leading to the court case.

A white homing pigeon was secretly marked by the team and traced back to Brown’s coop.

Mark Thomas, RSPB investigations officer, said: “We welcome this conviction as it sends a clear message that bird of prey persecution remains a serious and orchestrated crime, which continues to steal from society at large.

“Glenn Brown’s illegal actions have damaged the reputations of both his employer and of the game shooting industry in general.

“If they are serious about eradicating wildlife crime, both individual employers and the industry’s representative bodies need to do more to ensure that such people have no future in the game shooting business.

“Bird of prey persecution is a UK wildlife crime priority, and it is vital that Government and the police lead a renewed and concerted effort to afford birds of prey the protection they are due. As part of this, the UK Government should introduce a vicarious liability offence to make managers and employers responsible for the actions of their gamekeepers, as is the case in Scotland.”

The society said Derbyshire was the third-worst county in the UK for reported incidents of crimes against birds of prey.