A British judge has thrown a 4-year legal battle over a mushroom picker's rights out of criminal court, saying it isn't serious enough.

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Brigitte Tee-Hillman, 64, runs a small business supplying exotic mushrooms to upscale London restaurants, and when in season, picks them herself by hand in government forests.

Three years ago, Forestry Commission officers confiscated 14 pounds of chanterelle mushrooms worth about $50 and charged her with theft.

In Bournemouth Tuesday, Judge John Boggis threw the long-running battle out and chastised prosecutors, The Independent reported Wednesday.

"These criminal proceedings are wholly inappropriate to a matter of this sort," he said. "I am not dealing with someone up for (assault), 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."

A spokesman for the Forestry Commission said the commission would follow the judge's advice, and take proceedings to the civil courts "on behalf of amateur fungi pickers and the animals that depend on the mushrooms."