Can hunters and their supporters spell hypocrisy

Hunt supporters, led by Tim Bonner, CEO of the Countryside Alliance, are waging war on hunt saboteurs. Their latest modus operandi is to try to change the law to prevent sabs from effectively sabotaging illegal hunts by attacking their right to cover their faces in public.

A vitriolic and one-sided spiel against the sabs in the Mail Online on the 6th March gave pro hunt Victoria Prentice, MP for Banbury, a platform from which to explain her plan to discuss hunt sabs and face coverings during the debate on the Police and Crime Bill in the Commons. It is not currently illegal to cover one’s face in public, but Ms Prentis omitted to mention that the pro hunt supporters also avail themselves of this right whenever they intend to commit acts of vandalism or inflict personal injuries onto those who are against their cruel form of entertainment.  

Ms Prentis told The Mail on Sunday: ‘It is simply not acceptable that extremists can carry out harassment and assaults without fear of identification or prosecution.’

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Only thing wrong with her comment is that hunt saboteurs are most definitely not extremists. It is not extreme to care about animals and want to stop them suffering at the hands of thugs who set dogs on foxes as a form of entertainment. Not all hunt sabs cover their faces, and those who do do so to prevent reprisals from the thugs who follow the hunt.  

No one would argue about stopping masked thugs causing mayhem however, but the problem with the lady’s comment is her breath-taking hypocrisy.  More often than not when the saboteurs go out to monitor the hunts they are met with taunts and threats, and often actual bodily harm from masked up hunt bullies who cover their faces so they cannot be identified and punished for their crimes.

In one incident, as recently as March 6th masked supporters of the Ross Harriers hunt attacked a vehicle belonging to hunt saboteurs, smashing the rear window and showering the passengers in glass. The police are investigating and have retrieved the weapon used in the attack. Often tyres are slashed, and mutilated animals or excrement is left on the sabs’ car bonnets.

In November last year a hunt saboteur underwent plastic surgery to his hand after he was knifed by a masked hunt supporter at the Southdown and Eridge hunt, near Crowborough. Simon Russell suffered nerve and muscle damage during the assault. A 20-year-old hunt supporter was arrested on suspicion of grievous bodily harm relating to the attack. Mr Russell, who has been sabbing since he was 17, said doctors were unsure if he would regain the feeling in his thumb and he was lucky not to have lost his fingers.

And it’s not just the males who are violent. A Bedworth woman supporter of the Atherstone hunt was arrested in February 2015 after she failed to turn up in Court. She was filmed assaulting an anti-fox hunt protester in order to stop her filming the hunt chasing a fox.

Laura Caines was found guilty on two counts of assault by beating after she raked her nails down the saboteur’s cheek. The attack occurred just inside the Warwickshire border, near to Whittingham Farm in the north of the county. The Atherstone hunt denied knowing the woman, something they do regularly when their followers are caught in the act of breaking the law.

No masks this time, but in September of last year the Atherstone were again in the news. This time a hunt steward taunted the hunt monitors with a simulated sex act on a dead Canada goose. The video, released by West Midlands Hunt Saboteurs, shows a young man in a ‘hunt steward’ hoodie spinning the goose’s head around before another steward launches a kick in the direction of the lifeless bird. He then goes on to simulate a sex act with the corpse before forcing the bird’s beak open in an attempt to mimic talking. The Atherstone hunt denied knowing goose man at first, but filmed evidence showed the girlfriend of one of the hunt joint masters dressed in hunting gear laughing up on her horse and taking pictures.

Below is an extract from Outpaced, an online source for information about hunts and their thuggish behaviour. This account is particularly upsetting because the victim was a lone monitor whose only crime is that she loves animals and she is a gentle and courageous woman.
Outpaced  

“I recently watched a video of a hunt monitor being taunted as she was sprayed with water pistols full of piss, and the anger that this gave rise to was almost overwhelming.  Every instinct in me wanted to be there, to rip the pistol from the tweed-clad arms and to wipe the rictus grins from their faces.

The only thing that kept my rage to heel was the overpowering admiration for the way that hunt monitor (a small-statured, inoffensive and kind woman) kept her poise, her dignity and her absolutely unshakeable courage in the face of such treatment from a bunch of baying morons who sought to intimidate her.  She was nothing less than awesome as she stood strong, kept a reasoned tone, and took that treatment in the knowledge that it was the price of perhaps saving a fox that day.  It is humbling.”

Week in week out, brave people like that woman, are assaulted and threatened. The thugs on horseback and their brutal followers are emboldened by the indifference of the police to illegal hunting. They are not afraid of confrontation because they know the police usually believe their lies and the Courts rarely offer any punitive incentives for them to obey the law. There is an army of lawyers who specialise in hunting law waiting to use the loopholes in the hunting Act to get them off, and pro hunting MPs like Victoria Prentis are always waiting in the wings for any opportunity to argue a case against the thin line of saboteurs who are all that stand between pain, fear and death for British wildlife. The Countryside Alliance, that mouthpiece for all that is wrong in the British countryside, has the ear of many Tory MPs so that justice is rarely seen to be done.

Hunting brutality and hunters hiding behind face masks is nothing new to the saboteurs however. The savagery of the blood sports fraternity and the beatings have been going on for decades. As long ago as 1995 well before the hunting Act, balaclava-clad thugs at the Crawley and Horsham Foxhunt in Sussex smashed a saboteur van's windscreen. Meanwhile at the Cattistock Foxhunt in Somerset, Alistair Jackson, the southeast region press spokesman of the British Field Sports Society (BFSS), was arrested after punching a saboteur to the ground. The list is endless stretching back over countless times.

Lee Moon spokesperson for the Hunt Saboteurs Association said, ‘Hunters head out with the intention of illegally chasing and killing wildlife and when their efforts are thwarted they take their frustrations out on those who have stopped them. Violence against sabs has been going on for decades but as the hunts know it doesn't deter us, rather it makes us more determined to get out there and stop them killing.’

Reluctant heroes who do not ask for fame. We must support our saboteurs because it seems the establishment will do nothing to protect our precious wild life.

You have until March 18, 2016 to sign this petition - Time to strengthen the Hunting Act

Check out
Video of Atherstone steward simulating sex with a dead goose http://www.coventrytelegraph.net/news/local-news/warning-disturbing-video-shows-atherstone-10111039

Cotswold hunter on a horse attacking a sab https://www.facebook.com/3CHuntSabs/?fref=ts&ref=br_tf

15 year old assaulting saboteurs https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=video+atherstone+hunt+attacking+monitor&qpvt=video+atherstone+hunt+attacking+monitor&view=detail&mid=B1D580A012116A6D48BCB1D580A012116A6D48BC&FORM=VRDGAR

Hunt Saboteurs Association (warning graphic images of mutilated animals) http://www.huntsabs.org.uk/index.php?catid=0&id=208