Today’s protest at Wiltshire Police headquarters in Devizes over the appointment of PC Cheryl Knight into the rural crime unit despite being photographed riding with fox hunting associations, including the notorious Avon Vale Hunt, went peacefully.….
Devizes Police commended and thanked the protesters, “for the way that they conducted themselves.” Patronising is in the training manual.
The event passed peacefully, and no arrests were made. Online speculation there would be “trouble,” was unfounded; anti-hunting campaigners are passive by default. There are no grounds for claims made by PCC Philip Wilkinson, ousted by ITV for claiming to have “covertly” monitored sabs committing public order offences.
Organisers of the protest, Wiltshire Hunt Saboteurs, say “for over eighteenth years hunts have been prolific in breaking the law, and doing so with both the implicit and explicit consent, support and even membership, of those with the power to do something about it. Wiltshire Police deployed over 50 officers and multiple resources to turn their cameras on sabs, as terriermen await dig out instructions from the Avon Vale Hunt behind them.”
Superintendent Conway Duncan said: “We know people want to make their voices heard and the right to lawful protest is a key part of any democracy, which UK police uphold and facilitate.”
“We had a presence at the event to do just that, but also as part of our responsibility to ensure the local community were not adversely impacted.”
We hope they will listen and assign officers accordingly rather than with clear conflicts of interests. Please sign the petition HERE.
Wiltshire Hunt Saboteurs replied in a Tweet, “how dare they even consider themselves worthy of praising the protestors. Wiltshire police are by definition of their own criminality, beneath contempt. We do not praise the way they are conducting themselves over this sordid affair, nor the 18 years of them turning a blind eye.” Ah, but it’s do as we say, isn’t it? Not as we do!
Here we go again, Lacock’s Boxing Day incongruous pageant of corruption and barbarism plans to go ahead this year, despite protests, as The Avon Vale Hunt will gather in showy and shameless glory.….
Safe in the knowledge the single patrolling WPC, Laura Hughes was a member of the hunt, and it was suggested did little to remain impartial, last year’s Boxing Day fiasco turned nasty, with violent clashes between hunt supporters and protesters. The protesters intend to be in attendance again, for peaceful intent as always, but hoping for safety in numbers.
While you’d like to think Wiltshire Police have learned a lesson, and this year’s event will be more efficiently manned, no charges or disciplinary was deemed necessary for the officer in question, despite publicly stating “we do accept a potential conflict of interests should have been declared,” and claiming they were unaware of her association with the hunt. Well, they’re aware now, only time will tell.
We also hope Wiltshire PCC Phillip Wilkinson’s recent crackdown on rural crime strategies, which has seen recent arrests for hare coursing, will extend to hunting, but he has shown little respect for hunt protesters in the past, apparently calling anti-hunt individuals, “balaclava wearing thugs.” In similar logic as Nelson Mandela was a deemed terrorist, no doubt.
With Conservative MP James Gray accused of being in attendance last year, in support of the hunt, sonething he later denied although photographed there, it would seem there’s a clear aborehence of the Hunting Act within many powers that be, resulting in these clashes, which sadly takes costly lawsuits to justifiably resolve. Something avoidable with proactive policing, me thinks; or is that a tad too bleeding obvious?!
In April, three hunt supporters were convicted after pleading guilty to using “threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour with intent to cause unlawful violence.” In September though, the anti-hunt individuals were acquitted. Judge Dickens said, “ultimately, the evidence is pretty thin, wafer thin…While there is just about a case to answer, the evidence is wafer thin and it won’t get any better, and for those reasons I won’t be able to be sure they were not acting in self-defence.”
What is becoming clearer through this, is the wheels of the ‘trail hunting’ smokescreen are coming off, as the populous accept it’s a charade, and leaving hunters frustrated, and aggressive. I can understand this, they’ve taken their toys away, and in the name of tradition it would seem a shame, if the activity wasn’t a completely unnecessary bloodthirsty and barbaric activity which has been democratically deemed unwanted and unlawful in today’s society.
It now falls on town and parish councils, landowners and pub landlords to accept the majority’s appeal on this matter, and outright ban all hunting meets and activities on their land, regardless of these petty bogus claims of lawfulness, until such a time they can prove no acts of animal welfare have been breached. Which, and let’s be frank, they can’t, ergo they react in force of vengeance. For if they could, there would be no valid reason to behave with this thuggish mentality.
So, I cannot advise you attend, for your own safety, but the Boxing Day meet will start at 10am in Lacock, but doing so at your own risk will show support for the rising campaign against this, and, as I said, it is the responsibility of Wiltshire Police to ensure the event runs more smoothly this time. Here’s to a peaceful protest, then, and also to those risking themselves to protect our wildlife, not just on Boxing Day, but throughout the year.
My thought for the day, as I’ve permission to republish an article by the Hunts Sabs Association, suggesting with relevant and shocking examples, Wiltshire Police are lacking in pursuing these rural crimes.
I will direct your attention to the piece, but figure I’d attempt my own spin, else what’s the point in owning a blog in the first place?! So, I’m desperately trying to see the other side of the coin, to avoid accusations of bias. But every time forced to the opinion fox hunting and other blood sports is gratuitously barbaric, trail hunting, for many, is a smokescreen, and our police are clearly not proactive on the issue……
We trashed our common room in art college despite warnings they’d close it, and eventually they did. My bitterness toward the decision was driven by naïve self-centred arrogance of delinquency, but there came a point of feeling guilt that future students wouldn’t benefit from the facility due to our incompetence; reactionary anarchist I once was!
I ponder this “few ruined it for a rest” lesson as I browse hunting social media groups and pages. To momentarily steer against the hunt sabs, or FWGs, as is the favoured term we’ll use hereafter, an abbreviation of Frontline Wildlife Guardians, these glossy and glorious shows of countryside pursuits are embellished with glamorous images, (as our featured image of the Tedworth Hunt,) promoting family, fundraising events, that while a world apart from my own lifestyle, the legality and moral obligation of it is not entirely inconceivable, and the thought it’s not all just a charade hiding a cruel blood sport is a possibility, for some hunts.
Though as FWGs collate irrefutable evidence some hunts are clearly ignoring the law and continuing hunting by using trial hunts as a smokescreen, and in doing so are met with violent retort, county constabularies are working with campaigners and nationally progress is gradually happening, Wiltshire Police are accused of failing by comparison. The well-publicised poor policing of the violence at Lacock on Boxing Day is clear it needs addressing, FWGs report the incident is the tip of the iceberg.
Got to rub the worry-lines of my forehead here. The article points to five ongoing investigations they’ve been reliably informed are ongoing with the Avon Vale Hunt. It states, “alongside a Hunting Act investigation, there are investigations into assaults on sabs: in January, a Bristol sab was punched in the head by an Avon Vale terrier man who had been stopped digging out a fox from a badger sett. The saboteur was knocked unconscious and spent several nights in hospital with a brain bleed, precisely the sort of serious injury that can have tragic consequences and as ironically highlighted by Avon Vale fox hunting Tory MP for North Wiltshire James Gray in the ‘One Punch Can Kill’ campaign.”
I’m glad to hear they’re investigated, but it’s hardly proactive, where are the police when these assaults occurred? Intelligence should tip them off when hunts happen, and they should be policed akin to Saturday night at a city nightclub; there’s terrible acts of violence hiding in our rural fields, and not just on wildlife. Instead, Wiltshire Hunt Sabs told the Hunts Sabs Association, “with so many criminal investigations and allegations ongoing, we would have expected at least a modicum of police suspicion that these gangsters could possibly have been killing foxes, and also aren’t opposed to throwing the odd punch – or ten – at those of us who try to stop them and just maybe they have been doing exactly this for decades. Instead, what we have faced from the police is an unleashing of bias and abuse of power as our publicly funded police service is being used to protect a violent criminal hunt to carry on breaking the law.”
“We also had several officers tell us we could remedy the situation by ‘leaving the area’ whilst simultaneously acknowledging we were there lawfully. Can you imagine them telling someone being assaulted on the high street that they should go home and leave the assailant in peace?”
Besides, eyes of suspicion are on police bias over the Lacock Boxing Day bash-a-sab fest, being one of the two officers affiliated with the hunt personally reportedly took time to chat with her pro-hunt friends and “turned her back” on the violence. The sabs claiming “she was not just an ex-rider, we are also told her own horse was at the hunt on the 27th December 2021, being ridden by a friend of hers, who – we have been told – is also the partner of the violent terrierman responsible for the brain bleed in our Bristol hunt sab.”
The public deserve to know if officers on the scene made any calls for advice or back up, Police say they cannot correspond as the incident is under investigation. Police officers swear an oath of impartiality, the PCC doesn’t and Phillip Wilkinson made full use of this on Twitter, calling out FWGs as “bullies,” suggesting he was “not impressed when I witness grownups wearing balaclavas screaming in face of children who just happen to be riding a pony,” yet doesn’t appear to be able to back this bold claim up with evidence, and why, oh why would anyone take children to a fox hunt anyway?! I’m not associated in any manner with this group of Wiltshire Hunt Sabs and they never reveal their identity to me, but his claims are vastly different from my own dealings with them, as they appear to be the pacifist campaigners one would obviously perceive them to be.
A thread/ So @pwilkinson_pcc thinks hunt crimes are “rumours”. Maybe this clueless Tory politician – himself a barely-elected last minute stand-in for disgraced fox hunting criminal Jonathon Seed, doesn’t actually know what’s going on. Perhaps he could ask @WiltsRuralCrime..1/10 pic.twitter.com/RTojItUVov
— Wiltshire Hunt Saboteurs (@WiltsHuntSabs) March 11, 2022
If there are hunts really following the law with fake trails and they are in control of the bloodhounds to prevent them side-tracking from the scent of passing wildlife, as they insist they are, they’re unfortunate victims akin to the future generations of art students in my common room scenario; if some can’t be trusted, and police are informed, educated and trained to investigate, or as accusations suggest, seem to bizarrely favour the illegal pro-hunters, I say pull the plug on the lot, ban trail hunts and apologies if you really trail hunt legally, but the few ruined it for the others.
I’m drawn to the Tedworth Hunt, for example, who parade an “East Kennet Fun Ride,” as a Facebook event, defining it as “3 or 8 miles of beautiful riding on the Wiltshire Countryside with optional jumps.” Not for me, but I’ve no problem with this. Yet the accompanying photo shows a fellow dressed in traditional hunt uniform loading bloodhounds onto a trailer. Why would you need dogs if you’re only horse-riding I ponder? Why does the Tedworth Hunt carry pistols if it’s only a fake trial, does a fake trail open-fire first?! And one more question I’ll relay next paragraph, as, admittedly, therein lies my lack of knowledge on the subject, perhaps there’s good reason for it, I dunno, no one tells me, but why still call these hunting-related happenings hunts at all, and why would anyone support the philosophy of butchering of wildlife by subjecting the activity to replica scenarios if they didn’t secretly wish fox hunting to return? Would it not be better to rid ourselves of the entire culture surrounding it?
Armed Tedworth Hunters hardly project the same image as our featured one
The Wiltshire Hunt Sabs are the only ones who will communicate with me on the subject respectfully. This will post on social media and be met with many comments in support, and a few aggressive, hate-filled pro-hunt responses, but not one will contain any polite or reasonable counterargument, no one will invite me to view it from their angle, leading me to wonder why, if everything is tickety-boo, all dandy and legal, why they project this rage, why do they seem to hire these thugs to accost and assault members of the public for merely attempting to protect the wildlife they themselves claim to love and appreciate? Why all the hate if they’re operating legally, it doesn’t add up, unless, I conclude, they’re hiding something.
I note posts on hunting Facebook pages about how they love their hounds, but we’ve seen some shoot them dead if they underperform. If trail hunting is supposed to be this fun and harmless pursuit, it’s hardly non-competitive for the hounds they claim to adore. The point is, no matter how much I scan these glossy representations of modern hunting organisations, they suffer inane hypocrisy; why persist to support something historically barbaric and inhumane?
Because they claim they’re not fox hunting, the pre-Hunting Act excuse of culling is defunct, and the argument for trail hunts seems to rest on this baffling “traditional values” defence. For this I’d like to point out Victorian coalmines employed children to sit in dark passageways for twelve-hour shifts, their only glimmer of light being when the cart pulled into their section and they tugged it along to the next. Yet to suggest we send children down mines, that they don’t actually have to work down there, just sit there in the dark because it’s “tradition” would be ludicrous, but not unlike this concept of trail hunting.
A rather odd looking trail hunt
Yet, as observed by our Cobra Kai, PCC Wilko, they love taking their kids out to butcher wildlife, apparently, which is, to be frank, twisted beyond all reason, and concludes; it’s impossible to live rurally and be impartial towards blood sports. I could label “screaming in face of children who just happen to be riding a pony,” as complete and utter codswallop for the purposes of propaganda but that would imply the law are defending the unlawful, which cannot be true; who’s zooming who? Who knows what to think anymore? Other than perpetually the argument never settles, so obvious answer is ban it completely, it no longer serves a purpose, only causes friction.
Get a new hobby, preferably one unsupportive of murder!
Yesterday Wiltshire Council published an “update” on the lane closure on Northgate Street in Devizes as the fire which caused it reaches its first anniversary. Only, it’s more a “reminder” than an “update!” It begins, “the fire, in November 2024, caused significant damage to the Grade II-listed property and since then the council has had…
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Make no mistake, there’s a civil war under our noses, which comes to an apex when blood-thirsty predators triumphantly parade their wrongdoing on a day when most of us struggle out of bed to reach the fridge. Judge for yourselves who’s the goodies and who’s the baddies here, but pray tell me you’re not party to this obnoxious pageant? I mean, hardly “Christmassy,” is it, unless of course, Santa puts a bullet in the head of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer for not keeping up with the herd?
Posing a question in a headline, I’ve learned, attracts hits. Usual method is for me to then waffle endlessly, circling the question but never really answering it, until, only sometimes, at the conclusion. I’m gonna swap, answer it now, get it out in the open. Can we stop Boxing Day hunts across Wiltshire?
Don’t be disillusioned, and apologises for bursting any bubbles; the answer is no, not a chance, pal.
Despite good news last week that the Wilton Hunt Ball has been postponed due to the omicron outbreak, we all know pandemic restrictions last year didn’t bother them, and with reference to breaking news of government Christmas parties, flaunting the law for the most powerful in society doesn’t need investigating, according to police.
I mean, whatever did happen to the inquiry as to how hunting organisations pushed for a drink-driving Avon Huntsmaster to stand as Wiltshire PCC, costing the taxpayer over £3million for a re-election? The carpet is looking lumpy, how much more can be brushed under it?
Every avenue I explore on this subject gets blocked, no one in any position of power to help wants to address the issue. That is a total and utter disgrace and they should, quite frankly, hold their heads in shame.
Make no mistake, Boxing Day Hunts aren’t the bee-all-and-end-all of hunting, but they’re the most important hunt on the annual calendar, because the audience it attracts. The Countryside Alliance will try convince you droves arrive in support. True, Boxing Day hunts aim to condone and promote the tenet, crucial in their campaign to turn the Hunting Act 2004 on its head. Though many onlookers remain oblivious to the cruel realities, while others will be lobbying against it.
If all is not lost, councils of both county, town and parish levels can take action, if they wanted, ban it on their land, or at least refuse to accept invitations to, and disallow council land to be used to meet, thus reducing the celebration of blood sports and gradually eradicating the archaic and brutal custom.
In a heartfelt campaign, non-profit organisation, Keep the Ban, urge concerned folk to contact their councillors, celebrating success when Keswick Town Council in Cumbria decided to revoke their invitation to the John Peel Hunt. Locally, the wonderful Wiltshire Hunt Saboteurs informed me Bradford-on-Avon Town Council “have banned both hunting and culling on their land at town council level” but reckoned, “it’s mostly symbolic, although there are definitely council owned farms (tenant farmers of WCC) that do cull, so a wider wildlife protection policy is probably going to be more use.”
However, fresh from a meeting, Alison Kent, Clerk to Pewsey Parish Council replied yesterday, “the decision was to allow the Tedworth Hunt to meet in the car park on Monday 27th.” A local hunt which the Wiltshire Hunt Sabs claim “weaponised their horses against sabs.” Why would they do this, without anything to hide?
Armed Tedworth Hunters
My first port of call is Wiltshire Councillor Laura Mayes, who despite as Deputy Leader and Cabinet Member for Children’s Services, Education and Skills, this is not her area of expertise, it must be said, is always willing to humour me and answer my endless questions on any random subject, and I thank her for her help. Although, her answer was unswerving; “I have done some digging and asked Cabinet colleagues and we all agreed that WC has no power to take any action, re trail-hunting as it is currently a legal activity. Any illegal activity would be a police matter.”
Wiltshire Council may convince themselves nothing illegal is happening, yet I argue, like a speeding driver, for them, the thrill of the activity outweighs the carnage it might cause. I’m no prude, I can understand it must be exhilarating to ride across the hillsides in pursuit of a target, addictive even, given hunting is ingrained in their psyche, passed down through generations. If an arsonist wandered into a fireworks factory with a lighter, would WC turn a blind eye, safe in the knowledge setting it alight would be illegal, therefore the arsonist would resist the temptation of their own obsession?
Countryside Alliance website outrightly states they oppose the hunting Act 2004, claiming it’s “bad for rural communities,” even, and, get your head around this brazen irony, “bad for animal welfare,” and a “waste of police resources.” If they feel like this, and nothing is done to prevent them, how on God’s earth can you expect them to not pursue a wild animal if it was to be caught in heat of the moment on this supposed fake trail?
Let’s take the last part of the CA’s stance; on Boxing Day police resources will be stretched, on a day they’d rather be peaceful I’d wager, because they’ll need to be present across the country where the crowds gather to observe this pretentiously parade of their unforgiving activity as a magnificent pageant. I have to wonder how much police time is spent keeping an eye on the hunters against policing the meetings. I also emailed Wiltshire Police to ask how they would actually patrol a hunt, horseback I’d imagine being the only effective method.
I also wished to enquire what their relationship with the hunt sabs was like, if they supported the portfolio sabs are building to suggest unlawful acts are indeed taking place. Only this week, they posted a video to their Facebook page clearly showing The Royal Artillery Hunt rioting on two deer in an SSSI area on Salisbury Plain Training Area on Saturday 4th December, and Huntsman, Charles Carter, did nothing to call them off; something the Daily Mail suggested put the sabs “at war” with the Army.
A spokesperson for the sabs told me, “If something is being used as a smokescreen for a crime then either it’s an illegal activity or the law needs addressing!” Face it, Western Huntsman John Sampson in Penzance, was only found guilty of being in charge of dogs which killed a cat caught in the hunt on a Cornish housing estate, because a neighbour filmed him from their window, shamelessly lobbing the cat’s dead body into a nearby garden. If it wasn’t filmed, there would be no evidence. A clear indication hunters need monitoring, but while my press office contact with Wiltshire Police is usually responsive, they felt the matter needed to be addressed by the Rural Crime Unit, and passing my queries onto them was the end of our communication.
Should the police wish to respond, I can amend this appropriately, but time is pushing forward to Boxing Day, and my only line of information comes from The Wiltshire Hunt Sabs themselves. Far from a Batman-Chief Commissioner Gordan relationship, where Gordan doesn’t necessarily like the vigilante but compromises on the grounds they share the same goal, the Hunt Sabs were keen to criticise Police.
“I can show you a clip of an officer blocking a byway,” the sabs expressed, “when challenged he demanded evidence that they were illegally hunting, which the sab asked ‘well if you stop blocking the public right of way, I can get you some.’ He refused.” Whatever happened to inspector’s hunch aside, if investigation isn’t gathered by official resources, someone has to, furthermore, isn’t the officer acting unlawfully in blocking the byway, it’s a public right of way?
“Yeah,” the sabs replied, “accessing the byway was first a small section of ORPA (other routes of public access) so even though he had no idea what the public access rights where, he still chose to block it, even after offering to show him on an OS Map.”
Playing devil’s advocate, I supposed, his defence would be they were potentially there to “start trouble” when the hunters were doing nothing illegal. But how can he tell if the police don’t even follow the hunt? Have the Sabs ever seen police patrolling a hunt, keeping up with it to insure nothing illegal occurs?
“There’s no history of us starting trouble,” they replied. “The hunts always claim that but we don’t. We’re just there to make sure they don’t kill. Wilts Police have never to my knowledge ever patrolled a hunt. Any time they are there it is to ‘keep the peace,’ which in reality means blocking us from stopping them killing. The police don’t even know the law; on one hunt recently, two officers turned up and had to Google it on the way. I had to explain to them everything that was happening, and to be fair they listened, but initially they were too quick to take the hunt’s word that they were legally hunting. They have no training on this, I personally have emailed the rural crime team and asked, they’re not interested.”
I gulp at this, as while Wiltshire rural crime unit certainly isn’t responsive, the sabs said Gloucestershire Police now have “operation hunt,” and have said they will go out to hunts. But the real hard pill to swallow was my contact with The Wiltshire Hunt Sabs felt contacting the authorities was futile, adding in their understandable frustrations, “I can’t see them doing much, I personally have given up bothering with them.”
Still, all they ask for doing the tasks the police you pay for should be, is the price of a coffee to help their campaign funding, and they ask you sound your objection to Pewsey Parish Council for allowing the Tedworth Hunt to meet in their carpark, or contacting your MP and councillors in general, as Boxing Day Hunts go further than simply potentially bludgeoning a fox or any other animal which might accidently stumble into the crossfire, to death, but also act as a celebration and promotion of such cruelty.
I wish the season of goodwill to all men could extend to all life, all god’s creatures great and small, and I’m a realist who cannot accept nothing unlawful is happening here, when photograph and video evidence is there for all to see that clearly it is, and I thank the sabs for their time when others in power barely gave theirs, and for the difficult and arduous task they take on.
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