Hunting Conviction

Hunting conviction as published by Countryside Alliance

As you know there have been very few prosecutions involving hunts since the Hunting Act came into force and most of those have failed. The Act came into force nearly six years ago yet the guilty verdict delivered on Richard Down, the huntsman of the Quantock Staghounds, on Monday in Taunton Magistrates Court was only the fourth involving a hunt. That verdict may yet be appealed, and we will give our full support to Richard if he chooses to do so, but in the meantime it is worth considering the details of the case.

The Hunting Act was promoted by its supporters as a law which would reduce suffering and improve animal welfare. We argued that the real purpose was something completely different: a vindictive political attack on a misrepresented minority. Richard Down's conviction adds even more weight to our case.

Many of the facts were agreed by the court. An injured stag had been seen in a field of beans by a local farmer a day before the offence was committed in September 2009. The Quantock Staghounds met the next day and boxed to the area it was last seen. Richard took five of the seven hounds he had brought out to search for the stag. It could not be found on the farm so Richard crossed the road and started searching on the edge of the Quantock Hills. After some time a supporter who was ahead of the hounds radioed that he had seen a stag matching the description of the one they were looking for. Richard immediately loaded three hounds into a landrover so he could continue to hunt under the injured stag and put it out of its misery under the conditions of exempt hunting. After about eight minutes the stag was filmed entering a deep valley called Dens Coombe where it disappeared. Richard arrived shortly afterwards and stopped to gather three more hounds to help him find it in the coombe. The stag was relocated but climbed out of the other side before it could be shot. Richard could not follow, but two of the hounds were stopped immediately by hunt supporters whilst three continued to pursue the stag for a short distance before one more was stopped. The stag was killed about half a mile away and when skinned was found to have a broken bone in its pelvis which was likely have been caused by a car.

The court decided that once the stag had been found only two hounds should have been used to complete the hunt and that Richard was in breach of the conditions of exempt hunting by using five to search for it in the coombe. Whether or not that is correct one thing is certain: the limit on the number of hounds that can be used to hunt and kill an injured deer increases the time it takes to deal with any casualty. The Hunting Act caused the suffering of the stag that Richard Down was trying to put out of its misery to be extended, as it has done with many others.

These facts can lead to just one conclusion: it is the politicians who passed the law and the animal rights activists who celebrated this conviction who are really guilty of cruelty, not Richard Down whose primary concern remains the welfare of the deer of the Quantock Hills