Jeremy Charman, a hunt terrier-man of the notorious Crawley and Horsham hunt based in Sussex has been fined £80.00 by police after throwing a dead rabbit at hunt monitors in November 07.

Hunt monitors attending the hunt near Shipley, W. Sussex were followed by "hunt stewards" to a veterinary practice when they found a rabbit suffering from myxamatosis.  In an attempt to mock this humanitarian assistance for a sick animal, Charman was later videoed throwing a dead rabbit at monitors, shouting :"Try to revive this fucker."

In Nov. 06 Charman was videoed digging into a badger sett at the Heaselands estate, W. Sussex after the Crawley and Horsham hunt had chased a fox to ground.  As a result, Sussex police have issued new guidelines to police and are determined not to allow hunts to dig out badger setts in future

Police have issued a warning to Christopher Curtis, a hunt steward with the Crawley and Horsham after harassing a hunt monitor.

Sergeant Philip of Sussex police wrote to say: "I am of the opinion having viewed the footage that you were subject to harassment by way of Mr Curtis blocking you from carrying out lawful activity, in this case filming, in a public place.  I have personally issued a harassment warning to him of which he has accepted."

The man behind an anti hunt monitor website is a man called Andrew Leaver a Crawley and Horsham Hunt steward.  He was arrested on November the 16, 2007 after taking photographs in a court building and putting one up on his website.

Taking photos or video "within the precincts of a court" is a serious offence and is arrestable without warrent. Mr Leaver however only recieved a formal police caution

Simon Upton sent to prison (05/07/07)

This story dates back to 5th October 2006

A FARMER and hunt master who kicked his ex-wife and hit her with a tool from his stables has been jailed for ten weeks

Essex Union Hunt master Simon Upton was sentenced less than a year after a previous court appearance saw him fined for assaulting an anti-hunt protester

TWO BANNED OVER HARE COURSING (26/06/07)

Two men found guilty of illegal hare coursing have been banned from entering Lincolnshire with dogs for three years.

Gary Cregan (49), from Manchester, and Stephen Taylor (45), from Rochdale, were each given three-year anti-social behaviour orders at Lincoln Magistrates' Court yesterday

Two fined for hunting deer with hounds (8/06/07)

Two men were found guilty yesterday of illegally hunting deer with hounds in the second case brought against a hunt since the ban was imposed two years ago

The verdicts against huntsman Richard Down, 44, and whipper-in Adrian Pillivant, 36, of the Quantock Staghounds in Somerset were hailed as a victory by the League Against Cruel Sports, which brought the private prosecution

Gamekeeper punished for poisoning (04/06/07)

A Borders gamekeeper who admitted using live pigeons as bait and lacing pheasant carcasses with poison has been given 220 hours of community service. George Aitken, 56, from Lauder, admitted a total of eight charges.

He turned up for sentence at Selkirk Sheriff Court wearing a black full-face ski-mask and a combat jacket.

Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) investigating officer Bob Elliott described the case as the worst it had seen in at least 20 years. He believed Aitken was using the toxic substance to try to kill off birds of prey in the area

Essex and Suffolk hunt stewards pleaded guilty (4/05/07)

Four hunt stewards pleaded guilty to using threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour when they appeared before magistrates at Bury St Edmunds on Tuesday .

In court on Tuesday the three (shown left to right), James Applegate, of Bourne Hill, Wherstead, Robert Cundy, of New Barn Lane, Raydon and Jonathan Mander, Old Shields Farm, Asdleigh, Essex, all pleaded guilty and were each fined £200 and £55 prosecution costs.

A fourth defendant - Alexandra Bowes, of Mallard Way, Great Cornard - was fined £40 and ordered to pay £60 costs and £15 compensation

Anthony Greaves of Langley Farm, Leafield was caution for common assault on a monitor after he pushed her down a bank.  

He attended Chipping Norton police station on 3.4.07 with his solicitor and admitted the assault.

See the incident here

Man convicted under hunting act (27/03/07)

A man has been convicted of using his dogs to kill a fox in the first case under the Hunting Act to be brought to court by the RSPCA. Paul McMullen, of Bootle, Merseyside, was arrested after a woman reported a group of men with dogs digging into a badger set in the Cheshire countryside.

He had denied hunting a wild mammal with a dog but was found guilty by magistrates in Chester. McMullen, 36, was fined £750 and ordered to pay £5,000 in costs

BADGER BAITING RING IS BUSTED (04/03/07)

A FOXHUNTER has been accused of leading Scotland's biggest badger baiting ring after a series of raids.

Stephen Scott, 21, is to be charged with two othermen after police uncovered a makeshift vet's "surgery" in Hawick - packed with basic tools used to stitch up dogs injured by badgers.

Seventeen dogs seized from three houses in a series of dawn raids by police and cruelty experts needed emergency treatment for missing jaws and ears and gouges to their bodies

A grandmother was verbally abused and forced to jump clear of the wheels of a 4x4 vehicle driven by a man following an Oxfordshire hunt. 

Judy Gilbert, 60, a member of the League Against Cruel Sports, was monitoring the activities of the Vale of White Horse Hunt, at Filkins, in west Oxfordshire, in December, when a man following the hunt reversed his four-wheel drive vehicle towards her and shouted abuse

Mrs Gilbert said she escaped serious injury only by leaping on to a roadside verge. She was on the phone to the police at the time, reporting the same driver for damaging her car just an hour earlier.
About £500 worth of damage was caused to Mrs Gilbert's car after the man allegedly opened her door and slammed it into his own vehicle. It is also claimed he subjected Mrs Gilbert to a torrent of verbal abuse.

Last week, the man - who has not been named - was arrested and cautioned by police after admitting causing criminal damage

Watch the incident here

BRYAN FERRY's 24-year-old son was thrown in a police cell after a raucous night at a BAFTAs after-show party. OTIS FERRY was cautioned by police on Sunday night (11FEB07) after throwing a photographer's keys into the gutter outside London nightspot Boujis, which he was leaving with actress pal SIENNA MILLER.

Miller has been romantically linked to Otis' brother ISAAC, with the pair spotted canoodling throughout the night. It's not the first time Otis Ferry has had a brush with the law - he narrowly escaped a driving ban at a court hearing last month (JAN07) and stormed London's Houses of Parliament in 2004 in protest over anti-hunting legislation

Pro-Hunt Supporter is 'Nailed' (07/03/07)

A woman hunt supporter has been given a police caution after trying to puncture a tyre on a hunt monitor's car with a nail hidden in a Mars bar.  

The bizarre attack took place in the Cotswolds as the Heythrop Hunt was riding on the Gloucestershire and Oxfordshire border last month

The Crawley and Horsham Hunt's eagle owl man has admitted assaulting a female hunt monitor on 18th November 2006 and received a formal police caution. The incident took place at Middle Wood, Trawlers Farm, Southwater, West Sussex.

The Crawley and Horsham hunt had been using an eagle owl to try and claim "exempt hunting." Just before their owl man was placing the bird in the back of a Cherokee Jeep, he spat at one hunt monitor.

The owl man then goes to a different monitor and stands within a few inches of her, before pushing the camera hard into her face.

Huntsman guilty of assault (09/02/07)

A Dulverton Farmers huntsman has been found guilty of assault after he rode his horse at hunt monitors.

Anthony Allibone, 49, of The Kennels, East Anstey, had pleaded not guilty to assault on pensioner Yvonne Nichola, 66, who was monitoring the hunt near Brushford when the incident happened in March last year.

But, after a seven-hour trial today, West Somerset magistrates sitting at Minehead ordered him to pay £100 compensation to Ms Nichola, and a fine of £100

BADGER BAITING RING IS BUSTED (04/03/07)

A FOXHUNTER has been accused of leading Scotland's biggest badger baiting ring after a series of raids.

Stephen Scott, 21, is to be charged with two othermen after police uncovered a makeshift vet's "surgery" in Hawick - packed with basic tools used to stitch up dogs injured by badgers.

Seventeen dogs seized from three houses in a series of dawn raids by police and cruelty experts needed emergency treatment for missing jaws and ears and gouges to their bodies

A hunt steward has been fined £80 for using threatening behaviour towards two hunt monitors on Boxing Day.

Mervyn Dowell, a steward for Cotley Harriers, harassed and threatened League Against Cruel Sports monitor Graham Forsythe and Helen Weeks from Protect Our Wild Animals, as they attempted to video the Harriers near Yeovil.

When the monitors tried to retreat to the safety of their car, they found it completely blocked in by hunt supporters. Dowell, of Burridge Farm, Chardstock, Axminster, who was given an £80 fixed penalty fine, declined to comment yesterday.

Douglas Batchelor, of the League Against Cruel Sports, said: "These types of incidents against our monitors by hunt stewards are becoming all too commonplace. I hope the penalty on Mr Dowell will act as a warning to other stewards and hunt supporters that these types of bullying tactics will not go unpunished."

Pro-hunting campaigner Otis Ferry yesterday escaped a driving ban despite drinking at least seven shots of vodka during a student "trebles" evening.

The 24-year-old son of rock star Bryan Ferry was pulled over in Cirencester, Gloucestershire, shortly after leaving The Rock nightclub in the town on October 11, 2005.

Ferry of Eaton, near Shrewsbury, Shropshire, was found to have 55mg of alcohol in 100ml of breath. The legal limit is 35mg per 100ml.

During a special reasons hearing, Gloucester Magistrates' Court heard that Ferry's friends bought him treble vodka and Red Bull drinks, but he believed he was drinking single shots. Ferry escaped a driving ban, but was fined £500 and ordered to pay £364 costs.

Ferry said after the hearing: "I don't think I've got away with it. I've got to pay a huge fine."
He initially denied being over the drink-drive limit despite failing a breath test but he changed his plea to guilty halfway through his trial at Stroud Magistrates' Court last year.

The court heard Ferry was persuaded to spend the evening at the club with friends from Cirencester Agricultural College instead of driving home and added: "They were insistent for me to get involved."

Frazor Sibley a hunt supporter of Bignor Park Road Nursery, Bignor Park Road, Bignor, West Sussex was found guilty at Chichester Magistrates Court of assaulting an anti hunt protester during a meet of the Chiddingfold, Leconfield and Cowdray Hunt on 17th February 05

Sibley was given a two year Conditional Discharge and ordered to pay £250 costs.  On Aug 25, 06,  Lewes Crown Court fined hunt supporter Wayne Spencer £400 with £700 costs for an assault during the same incident

Footage shown to the court that was taken by a cameraman for ITN news, showed Sibley punching  the anti hunt protester six times in the back of the head.  Sibley argued he was defending a hunt rider, when in fact the hunt rider was deliberately riding into the protester to stop him videoing an attack by Wayne Spencer

View a video of the incident here (6Mb)

Huntsman guilty of monitor attack (26/09/06)

A Devon huntsman has been found guilty of attacking a campaigner who was filming a hunting event.

Christopher Marles, 44, of Farringdon, near Exeter, repeatedly punched Kevin Hill, a hunt monitor with the International Fund for Animal Welfare. He denied assault at a Devon and Somerset Staghounds hunt last October

A hunt supporter has been convicted of attacking a saboteur in clashes on the last day before hunting with dogs was banned in February last year.

Farmer Wayne Spencer, 39, of Oakhurst Lane, Billingshurst, West Sussex was found guilty of assaulting Simon Clear but cleared of actual bodily harm.

The incident happened after the final meet of Chiddingfold, Leconfield and Cowdray Hunt at Petworth Park. A judge fined Spencer £400 with £700 costs at Lewes Crown Court on Friday.

He was also cleared of unlawfully wounding another protester, Carol Tibbetts

View a video of the incident here (6Mb)
Read more about Spencer and the day in question here

On 16/9/06 hunt supporter Jeffrey Poulton (39) of Llandewi Fach, Builth Wells was cleared of robbing and assaulting anti-hunt protesters. Poulton had denied robbery and two charges of common assault.

A jury at Swansea Crown Court cleared him of robbery and one of the common assault charges. The judge cleared Poulton of the second assault charge after the jury could not reach a verdict.

Anti-hunt protesters were filming the Golden Valley Hunt when it is alleged Poulton had grabbed one by the right leg without warning and pulled him off the bonnet, sending him crashing onto the road injuring his elbow and leg.

Then, he told the court Poulton had kicked the camcorder across the road. He added when one of them quared up to Poulton he was struck on the back of the neck. When another protested at Poulton "walking off" with the camera she was grabbed by the throat, he said

Fine for buzzards' death (13/07/06)

A WOMAN farmer from Wramplingham whose gamekeeper used a rat poison that killed two birds of prey was fined on Tuesday - securing the first-ever prosecution for "secondary poisoning".

Magistrates expressed concern that the poison, Difenacoum, was freely available to the public at garden centres without guidance on how to use it safely.

Central Norfolk magistrates at Swaffham heard that the build-up of poison in the two dead buzzards - found last year in woodland on a farm at Carbrooke, near Watton - was among the highest recorded in a bird of prey in England

Rosalyn Vincent (pictured) is the wife of Stephen Vincent, the Chairman of the Dunston Harriers Hunt

Fine for bird poison gamekeeper (12/07/06)

McNeil (shown right) has been a gamekeeper at Glenbuchat for 30 years

An Aberdeenshire gamekeeper who poisoned wild birds and kept illegal pesticides has been fined £850.

Hector McNeil, who worked on Glenbuchat estate for 30 years, had admitted killing a raven, of which there are only two breeding pairs in Grampian.

Aberdeen Sheriff Court had heard the 56-year-old had poisoned gulls eggs, a food source for ravens, to protect pheasant and red grouse numbers.

The RSPB said the fine was too small to act as a deterrent to others

18th June 2006

Crawley and Horsham hunt supporter pleads guilty to driving without due care and attention, having no insurance and failing to report an accident

MAN AVOIDS JAIL OVER BADGER DIG (14/3/06)

A man who snatched badgers from their sett has been given 200 hours community service and banned from keeping dogs.

Tony Billington, 37, travelled from his home in Bamber Bridge, Lancashire, to take the animals from a sett near Loggerheads in Staffordshire

FORMER GAMEKEEPER FINED (18/2/06)

A former Deeside gamekeeper who took a shotgun on to a neighbouring estate and aimed it a hen harrier has been fined £500.

Stonehaven Sheriff Court was told that Colin Marshall had "contemplated" killing the protected bird, but made no attempt to do so.

The 22-year-old was filmed by members of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds training his shotgun, but not firing, on the Crannach Estate near Ballater

BADGER BAITER JAILED FOR SIX MONTHS (3/2/06)

A Soldier was put behind bars for six months yesterday for badger baiting.

Craig Trevelyan, 32, a sergeant with the Royal Welch Fusiliers, was found guilty of three charges under the Protection of Badgers Act 1992 when he appeared before magistrates at Coleford. Trevelyan, of Caer Bryn Road, Pen y Groes, Carmarthenshire, denied the charges of willfully killing a badger, digging for a badger and interfering with a badger sett causing damage to it.

MAN ON TRIAL FOR CRUELTY TO BADGERS (24/1/06)

An alleged badger-baiter from Llanelli was caught red-handed when police raided his home and found a stuffed badger taking pride of place in his hall, a court heard.

Craig Trevelyan, aged 32, of Cae'r Bryn Road, Penygroes, revelled in his sick hobby of sending terriers down badgers' sets to flush them out for a fight, it was claimed

A KENNELMAN convicted of cruelty to two hunting dogs has been sentenced to 180 hours community service.

Philip Simmonds, who runs The Kennels in Cambridge Road, Barton, was also ordered to pay £750 of £26,569 RSPCA costs in bringing the case.

Fifty-one-year-old Simmonds was found guilty last month of illegally stitching up a wound in a beagle's leg and causing it unnecessary suffering by failing to give pain relief and veterinary care.

He was also convicted of failing to have another dog treated for chronic ear problems.

Simmonds was cleared of a sixth charge involving a third dog which it was claimed he caused to suffer unnecessarily during a delay in putting the animal down.

The magistrates decided it was not necessary to ban Simmonds from keeping animals.

A Devon man charged with assaulting an animal welfare worker during a stag hunt pleaded not guilty when he appeared before magistrates.

Christopher Marles, 44, from New Buildings, Farringdon, near Exeter, is charged with causing actual bodily harm to Kevin Hill, who monitors hunt activity.

Marles is due to reappear at North Devon Magistrates on March 1 for committal proceedings to begin. He was granted unconditional bail.

A huntsman accused of flouting the hunting ban will appear before magistrates on Friday, March 3. Tony Wright, 51, from the Exmoor Kennels, Simonsbath, pleaded not guilty at Barnstaple Magistrates Court in December to hunting foxes with dogs at Drybridge on April 29.

It is the first prosecution in England relating to a fox or stag hunt under the new law, and it was brought by the League Against Cruel Sports.

Two men who admitted being involved in hare coursing were fined at Elgin Sheriff Court yesterday.

Alec Reid, 17, of 10 Daldalcroy Road, Croy, near Nairn and 23-year-old Stephen Stewart pleaded guilty to deliberately hunting hares with dogs in a field at Alves, near Forres, on May 1 last year.

When police arrived at the scene, they found the remains of one hare which had been savaged.

Reid and Stewart were each fined £250 when they admitted contravening the 2002 Protection of Wild Mammals Act.

A man has been cleared of assaulting a group of female anti-hunt protesters.

Martin Eccleston, 53, of Coolham Road, Thakeham, West Sussex, clashed with them at a hunt meeting in January 2005.

He was convicted of causing criminal damage to the women's Land Rover, but cleared of charges of common assault and inflicting actual bodily harm.

A jury at Lewes Crown Court failed to reach verdicts on two other actual bodily harm charges. Eccleston was given a 12-month conditional discharge.

He was also ordered to pay £60 compensation after being found guilty of smashing the rear windscreen of the protesters' vehicle.

A FORMER Dalmeny Estate gamekeeper who indecently assaulted three children over a decade has been jailed and placed on the sex offenders' register indefinitely.

Donald Peter Bennie Smith, 57, who worked at the South Queensferry estate in the 1970s, indecently touched the teenagers between 1978 and 1989.

He enticed one boy to his gamekeeper's house on the Dalmeny Estate when he was aged 13 to 15 by asking him to walk his dog, work in the garden and help with pheasant shooting.

He pleaded guilty to three charges of indecent behaviour and was jailed for four years and nine months.

A huntsman has been charged with breaking anti-hunt legislation a year after being cleared in a similar case.

Trevor Adams, Master of the Buccleuch Foxhounds, allegedly contravened the Protection of Wild Mammals (Scotland) Act 2002.

He was charged in relation to an incident on 10 October at a farm near Kelso.

The Buccleuch hounds are alleged to have been seen pursuing a fox across a field before it was killed.

Mr Adams was the first huntsman to be prosecuted under the 2002 Protection of Wild Mammals Act and went on trial last December but was found not guilty.

The kennel huntsman of the Avon Vale Foxhounds in Wiltshire was arrested on Monday 21st November 2005 following an incident where hunt monitors were attacked and robbed of their video equipment.

The incident occurred when 4 hunt monitors were present at a meet of the Avonvale fox hunt at Rowde Hill Farm, Bromham, Wiltshire on Saturday 8th October 2005.

The hunt monitors were filming the huntsman putting hounds through a patch of scrub near Craymarsh Farm, when a group of hunt supporters approached the monitors and attacked them. 1 male monitor was ridden down by a quad bike and another female monitor was attacked and struck on the neck by the mounted kennel huntsman. He then grabbed her video camera and rode off with
it.

The kennel huntsman was arrested on Monday 21st November for Robbery, 6 weeks after the incident occurred. He was released on bail.

POLICE and animal cruelty inspectors have swooped on the homes of three gamekeepers in the Borders who now face court accused of breaching wildlife laws.

The first raid took place on the Jedburgh home of part-time 'keeper 69-year-old Joseph Paxton. Officers took away the carcasses of birds of prey and what are believed to be illegal poisons. He has been charged with 10 offences including putting down poisoned bait.

Mr Paxton's Jedburgh gamekeeping colleague and TV repair man Tony Lowrie, 52, was charged with