27th June 2009

Two men guilty of badger digging

Two men have been found guilty of using dogs to drive badgers out of their setts in Shropshire. Paul Billington, 32, of Wrexham and Gerard Monk, 27, of Wheelton, Lancashire, were found guilty after a two-day trial brought by the RSPCA.

The pair faced a variety of charges including attempting to kill a badger, digging for badgers, interfering with setts and hunting with dogs

24th June 2009

Hunt supporter fined

Hunt supporter Benjamin James Elliot was ordered to pay £1,065 in fines and costs yesterday after magistrates watched 30 minutes of film footage showing him using his Land Rover to stop a hunt monitor's car travelling freely on a Dorset road.

The prosecution told magistrates at Blandford that Elliot's manner of driving was "designed to intimidate and harass".

18th June 2009

Hunt master in court over assault claim

A hunt master from Durham will appear in court today after being charged with assaulting two female hunt monitors. League monitors Lynne Edwards and Hazel Greaves were monitoring the South Durham Hunt on 28 February 2009 when the attack by Gary Watchman is alleged to have taken place.

Mr Watchman will appear at Sedgefield Magistrates Court, in Newton Aycliffe following claims he hit both women with his whip while trying to stop them filming his hunts activities. This latest case follows the recent jailing of Christopher Marles of the East Devon Hunt who was sentenced to six months behind bars for a similar assault

17th June 2009

Royal gamekeeper fined for snaring badger at Balmoral

A gamekeeper on the royal family's Highland estates at Balmoral has been fined after a badger was killed by one of his snares, breaching wildlife crime legislation.

Robbie Elliot, 45, admitted he had failed to check a snare at least once a day at Birkhall, Prince Charles's Scottish holiday home at Balmoral which he inherited from the Queen Mother after her death. The snare had killed a badger, which had lain there for at least two weeks.

Elliot was fined £450 at Stonehaven sheriff court today for breaching the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 after Sheriff Patrick Davies rejected a defence plea for leniency

15th June 2009

Man charged with shooting badger

A man was today charged with shooting a badger dead after one of the protected creatures was found with a bullet wound last year. Michael Pierce, 57, is charged with two offences under the Protection of Badgers Act 1992 - killing a badger and using a firearm to kill a badger.

Pierce was held after a badger was discovered shot dead on land in Towendack, St Ives, Cornwall, on 23 September 2008

11th June 2009

Cumbrian man denies illegal hunting charges

John Harrison, 48, of Grassthwaite Howe, in Glenridding near Penrith, appeared at Eden Magistrates’ Court charged with two counts of hunting a wild mammal with a dog. He pleaded not guilty to both offences, and will now go on trial before a district judge in Penrith over three days from September 16 to September 18.

The Hunting Act was brought in by the Government in 2004, and prohibits the hunting of mammals with dogs, unless the hunting is exempted. Harrison was granted bail. Both his solicitor and a representative from the Crown Prosecution Service will appear before magistrates in Carlisle on August 17 for a review of the case ahead of the trial

8th June 2009

Banned for hare coursing

A REDBOURN man has been banned from entering farmland throughout two counties with a dog after he was caught illegally hunting hares. Jimmy Cash,45, of Lybury Way has been given a two year anti-social behaviour order (ASBO), following a conviction under the 2004 Hunting Act .

The order, issued at Stevenage Magistrates' Court on Thursday, prohibits him from trespassing, either on foot or in a vehicle, on agricultural or privately-owned land privately owner, with a dog anywhere in Hertfordshire or Cambridgeshire. He has been convicted of two offences in connection with an incident near Royston in October