A MUSHROOM picker was today celebrating a "victory for common sense" after a judge ruled she will not stand trial for picking edible fungi in the New Forest National Park.

Brigitte Tee-Hillman, 64, pictured left, of Sway Road, Pennington, was accused of stealing six and a half kilos of wild mushrooms from the New Forest on November 15, 2002.

The case, which has cost taxpayers several thousand pounds, was dropped after a hearing at Bournemouth Crown Court.

Judge John Boggis QC said: "These criminal proceedings are wholly inappropriate to a matter of this sort. I am not dealing with someone up for GBH, or someone dealing in heroin, I'm dealing with a matter which falls for the civil courts."

"It is wholly inappropriate for public money to be spent on criminal proceedings such as this."

Mrs Tee-Hillman's solicitor Clive Sutton said outside court : "It's a victory for common sense. The fact that the judge has said the Forestry Commission should have just sued her."

He said the case would have cost taxpayers "several thousand pounds" and he blamed "bureaucracy" for the case ever making it to court.

Mrs Tee-Hillman, who runs Mrs Tee's Wild Mushrooms shop in Lymington, said: "I'm highly delighted but I did not expect anything else.

"It should never have been brought in the first place. It was a complete waste of public money and our money."