At last! Hunter caught in the act!

[Basil_Gadshrew]

As you may know it's illegal to flush deer from your property to stop them harming the trees and then not shoot them. OK, hitherto there have been no reported instances of deer actually being shot because of this law, nor indeed of anyone being arrested for failing to shoot them. Neverthless, the fact remains: a law's a law and I for one am not going to let anyone get away with deliberately flouting it.

It is therefore with enormous satisfaction that I produce for you evidence - nay, proof - of a miscreant caught on camera flagrantly breaking the law. Moments after I took the photo I naturally made a citizen's arrest and took the criminal home for questioning. I have released this photo to the Prime Minister, the head of NATO, the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Secretary General of the UN. This madness is going to stop and it's going to stop now!

http://i256.photobucket.com/albums/hh175/basilsphotos/criminaldoggy.jpg

 

[wurzel]

Basil

Are related to that other well known criminal family, the Gadshrews of Heasley Mill ?

I was only having a pot of earl Grey with Carver Doone the other day up at Pinkery and your name came up!

 

[antiantianti]

I believe that is a picture of the perpetrator taken on the costa del hunt crime.

He rmagesty's Government are currently working to extradite him for his crimes against wildlife.

Meanwhile animal wardens from the RSPCA and LACS are currently out trying to put right the horrendous and evil cruelty caused by rounding up the flushed animals and as soon as possible sticking slugs of lead into their foreheads.

These are of course entirely reasonable steps to take as the Hunting Act is a thoroughly sensible law which we should all respect - not.

 

[Basil_Gadshrew]

You may think it's a laughing matter, antiantianti, but I certainly do not. The dog in question is clearly breaking a law. The law states that it's illegal for a dog to scare a deer which subsequently runs away without being shot. In this instance a young doe caught sight of "Bonza" in the pool and took to flight. Bonza's owner must have know this would happen: the woodland surrounding the pool is chock-full of deer. I'm a reasonable man and believe one should give some latitude to laws when interpreting them, but in this instance it's perfectly obvious that Bonza's owner is breaking the Hunting Act 2004. Only a utterly deranged nincompoop would interpret the Act differently.

 

[antiantianti]

I do hope it wasn't a dolphin pool. If so there rerally should have been someone on had with a harpoon gun in case he made it jump out of the water.

 

[Basil_Gadshrew]

The facts are staring you in the face and all you can do is make silly jokes. Don't you see how vitally important this issue is?

 

[antiantianti]

LOL Basil when was obeying laws passed by jerks an important issue?

 

[jessop]

"Don't you see how vitally important this issue is? "

Surely it would only be vitally important if people actually obeyed the law. It's quite clear that everybody realises it's a total cock up and that it should be ignored by all and sundry. At the end of the day I think we all know that we are ruled by idiots who couldn't legislate their way out af a paper bag.

 

[Basil_Gadshrew]

If you think the law is stupid that's one thing, but breaking it with impunity is quite another. Don't you agree that this issue is so profoundly important that, irrespective of how he felt about the law, Bonza's owner should have given himself in to the police? I am quite confident that, had he done so, not one member of the public would have dismissed him as an obsessional publicity-seeking fool but, to a man and woman, the British people would have recognised in him the same heroic and selfless quality which drove Captain Scott out the tent.

 

[Aesop]

The police are meant to have a duty to prosecute people who deliberately and openly break the law, especially when they do so as a public protest. However in the case of the Hunting Act the police, the government and LACS all realise that they cocked up the law so public policy is to allow people to do it.

People who go out with dogs, flush out and then chase deer across the countryside are not prosecuted unless they are members of an organised hunt.

 

[antihunt]

The law is quite clear the deliberate flushing out and chasing of wild deer is illegal. It is a disgrace that the authorities refuse to enforce it.

If people are going out and doing this in order to ridicule and reduce respect for the law then that makes the offense all the more serious.

In spite of Basil's (Giles') attempts to lampoon it the criminal law IS important and should be respected.

 

[Basil_Gadshrew]

"People who go out with dogs, flush out and then chase deer across the countryside are not prosecuted unless they are members of an organised hunt."

Agreed, and that is quite wrong. Let us examine what was said by a Minister in the House of Commons during one of the debates on the Hunting Act:

"Mr Deputy Speaker, I would like now to deal with the type of activity which the Government intends to prohibit under this Act. The hon. lady opposite states that the Act is aimed at the many fox and deer hunts across the country. This is not the case. Let me be absolutely specific and unequivocal on this point. In this Bill the Government intends to criminalise the person who takes his dog onto his property and seeing a deer in a distant copse nibbling away furiously on verdant leaves encourages his dog to chase the animal away. It is our desire to proscribe this sort of scenario which has led to this Bill being set before the House today and I believe the vast majority of the British people will support our stance."

 

[antiantianti]

Don't be so silly Basil! You don't really think that such ridiculous and outdated concepts as the law applying equally to everyone and everyone having to obey it apply in today's sophisticated society?

These stupid liberal notions have no relevance at all and are totally unimportant.

The 'rule of law'?

Utterly irrelevant old boy!

 

[Basil_Gadshrew]

antiantianti, you've misunderstood the minister's words. The Hunting Act 2004 is drafted precisely so that it doesn't "apply equally to everyone". It is designed to punish the person who goes walking in the woods and deliberately lets his dog chase a deer away. That was the clear intention of Parliament when passing the law. Sadly, the poor hunts have got caught up in the flak and they have become the unintended victims of the legislation, but I am confident that once the law-enforcers have had time to consider the matter they will turn their sights on the real criminals, the dog walkers.

 

[Sidesaddle]

So many newbies!

I am convinced there are only about 3 people in this thread. Well maybe 4 ...

 

[antiantianti]

I know Basil. People are SO naive if they do not realise that wether or not you break the law depends on who you are.

So what if chasing deer is illegal that doesn't mean that most people can't just carry on regardless.

I love chasing deer, my dogs love chasing deer why should we let a stupid little thing like a law get in the way of our fun?

Foxes and hare are quite good too!

 

[Basil_Gadshrew]

Precisely! People don't seem to realise there's a HUGE conspiracy going on and the target is every dog owner in the land. The sole purpose of the Hunting Act 2004 was to attack otherwise completely law-abiding citizens who use their dogs to scare deer away from wood plantations on their property. Are you the owner of a dog with a forest in your garden in Balham? Then the Government is AFTER YOU!!! Madness, utter madness!!!!!!!

 

[antiantianti]

I thought it was just people who use their dogs to flush out or pursue wild mammals who are now criminals.

Nothing wrong with a spot of crime though

 

[Basil_Gadshrew]

The Act casts an extremely wide net: any person taking his dog out is potentially a criminal and that's the Government's intention. You buy Pedigree Chum? Be afraid!

 

[antihunt]

The Act casts an extremely wide net: any person taking his dog out is potentially a criminal and that's the Government's intention.

COMPLETE AND UTTER NONSENSE!!

It is ONLY people who allow there dogs to search for, stalk, flush out, chase, kill or otherwise hunt wild mammals who are criminalised. All these activities are forms of hunting and are therefore cruel.

The Labour Party and the anti hunt movement is extremely proud of this law and we do not take people like you taking the micky out of it kindly.

Anyone who deliberately breaks the Hunting Act should face prosecution!

 

[Basil_Gadshrew]

Read the parliamentary debates: Labour's target was never the fox or deer hunts - it was the dog owners who have woods on their property and use their dogs to chase deer away from the juicy foliage. To deny this is to embrace Mr or Mrs Madness and invite him/her back to your pad for a romp.

 

[antiantianti]

He's SUCH an idiot Basil! The idea that such a law should be used against everyone who breaks it is just SO ridiculous.

At the end of the day why shouldn't people chase deer with dogs? It's great fun and if it helps to protect crops then so much the better.

My dogs LOVE chasing deer. It gives meaning to their otherwise empty lives.

 

[Basil_Gadshrew]

I think the tide's turning. People are beginning to realise just how evil and corrupt the Blair Government was. From the very first moment of their time in office their chief aim was to attack the completely decent people who quite innocently use their dogs to scare the deer away from their ecologically-sound coppiced tree plantations. When I first read the bill which eventually became the Hunting Act 2004 I thought to myself: "Blair's got it in for dog-owners who've got a copse on their property and flush deer away from the trees with their pooches." What was so obvious to me then is now becoming painfully evident to the hundreds of people who've now been arrested for this crime, not to mention the hundreds of deer which have been slain simply to comply with this loathsome piece of legislation.*

*Edited to say: I got carried away there. I don't think anyone's actually been arrested and there have been no reports of deer being shot in these circumstances. Doesn't change the fact that this is a vile anti-dog-owning Act.

 

[hotellie]

clever name!

 

[Eagle_day]

"The Labour Party and the anti hunt movement is extremely proud of this law"

You're serious, right?

 

[bounce_back]

This sort of criticism of the law is completely superfluous.

It is clear that the law has an anomally that means that animals can only be flushed out unless they are shot.

However it is up to the hunt monitors to decide who gets prosecuted and who doesn't.

No one who chooses to break the Hunting Act has anything to fear except those we choose to have prosecuted.

The new reversal of the burden of proof as promised with Alun Michael will make it even easier for us to ensure that the people's will be done and that members of the hunting fraternity are succesfully prosecuted.

People who hunt need to understand you have lost and your days are numbered.

 

[only_me]

hi bunce

so how many people have you prosecuted and then compare that to the thousands of people that go hunting.

the hunt moniters cannot decide who is prosecuted - i thought that that was the polices job.

"People who hunt need to understand you have lost and your days are numbered. "
Yeah rite... again have you not seen the statistics that after hunting was banned the number of subscriptions and people going hunted went UP?


i still have not forgiven you for what you said in the accident post.

 

[bounce_back]

All laws take time to settle in. The reversal of the burden of proof soon to be confirmed by the courts means that it will be up to the accused to prove their guilt. The polce have a duty to prosecute where there is a realistic chance of prosecution. This fact together with the essential filtering role provided by the hunt monitors in deciding what evidence to the police will lead to a massive increase in prosecutions over the coming years.

People like Basil think that we are stupid, we are not. This is the final solution to the hunting issue. We will not stop until the Hunting Fraternity has been eliminated.

You need to understand that your way of life is at an end.

 

[only_me]

sure... you keep thinking that and we will all toddle off hunting.

 

[antiantianti]

Of course in Northern Ireland they didn't bother with this farce of a law. They just have a law which makes it illegal for anyone to deliberately cause undue suffering to an animal. What a remarkably sensible way to legislate!