Hunting is in a spot of bother

[Fred66]

I know that hunting relies on landowners, and this is EXACTLY why hunting seriously needs to clean up its act if it wants to survive. If all trail hunts were as well behaved as yours supposedly is, I would see no problem with them - they would exist like any other sport. But the evidence overwhelmingly points to the opposite. You seem to find it hard to accept that hunting has created a really bad image for itself. And before you say that anti-hunt propaganda from LACS and the like is to blame, I have never followed LACS or any anti-hunt groups, I only have to keep up with BBC news and country forums to read the various escapades of hunts each year - the fatal pet attacks, livestock killed, crops trampled.
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Could you point me to genuine “overwhelming“ evidence that points to this ? There are probably in excess of 20000 days hunting per year in England and the number of proven incidents are less than 100 (don’t get me wrong that is still too many) but equally it’s less than 0.5%.

Who do you think gives the BBC their reports if not LACS or HSA ?

Its easy to be swayed by emotive pieces but these are not in themselves facts. If pets are killed by dogs then this is distressing for the owners and anyone who witnesses it , whether that dog belongs to a private individual or the hunt doesn’t change the distress.

I personally supported the middle way of greater regulation of the hunts, whereby they would have been licensed and that license could have been suspended or removed. This would have put animal welfare and control at the forefront but for whatever reason animal welfare was not as important as one upping the landed gentry. So we have a law that suits noone.

 

[sakura]

Its easy to be swayed by emotive pieces but these are not in themselves facts. If pets are killed by dogs then this is distressing for the owners and anyone who witnesses it , whether that dog belongs to a private individual or the hunt doesn’t change the distress.

Yes, I am entirely swayed by my emotions of not wanting to see animals chased and hunted. I honestly don’t care that people have fun and see tradition in it. This also isn’t about sabs, though I suppose it’s useful to redirect the discussion towards them - as has always been the way with pro fox hunters.

Pets being killed by hounds should be distressing to everyone - owner or witness of someone who has simply heard about it. For me personally, seeing an animal killed by a pack of dogs would always be an even greater distress than a lone dog attack.

 

[sakura]

I’ll also just add the distress my horse has experienced over the years from the local hunt deviating from their route time and time again.

 

[millikins]

I’ll also just add the distress my horse has experienced over the years from the local hunt deviating from their route time and time again.

I am interested to know how they have "deviated from their route". They will be following a trail laid by a human runner trying to imitate a fox, if everyone knows the route it's rather pointless.

 

[GoldenWillow]

I am interested to know how they have "deviated from their route". They will be following a trail laid by a human runner trying to imitate a fox, if everyone knows the route it's rather pointless.

From my point of view I assume they are deviating from their route when they consistently go through land that they have no permission to be on.

 

[millikins]

From my point of view I assume they are deviating from their route when they consistently go through land that they have no permission to be on.

Yes, that would make sense, I hope you complained to the secretary, MFHA etc.

 

[sakura]

I am interested to know how they have "deviated from their route". They will be following a trail laid by a human runner trying to imitate a fox, if everyone knows the route it's rather pointless.

We all know there are hunts that regularly and brazenly break the law by continuing to hunt foxes.

 

[millikins]

We all know there are hunts that regularly and brazenly break the law by continuing to hunt foxes.

No, we don't. The anti's and hunt saboteurs have now had 18 years to show proof of consistent flouting of the law and have failed to do so. In this day and age when all the cyclists wear Gopro's to monitor bad driving, one would have thought it wouldn't be difficult to find conclusive evidence but anti's are still relying on hearsay, anecdote and "we all know...."

 

[GoldenWillow]

Yes, that would make sense, I hope you complained to the secretary, MFHA etc.

Yes, I and others did, every single time it happened. Nothing changed until large LO withdrew his permission for the hunt to have access to any of their land so the hunt does not have permission for approx 1200+ acres around us.

 

[GoldenWillow]

No, we don't. The anti's and hunt saboteurs have now had 18 years to show proof of consistent flouting of the law and have failed to do so. In this day and age when all the cyclists wear Gopro's to monitor bad driving, one would have thought it wouldn't be difficult to find conclusive evidence but anti's are still relying on hearsay, anecdote and "we all know...."

We are lucky in our area not to have had any hunt saboteurs but on the rare occasions that peaceful hunt monitors appear the hunt immediately loads up and goes.

 

[Steerpike]

We are lucky in our area not to have had any hunt saboteurs but on the rare occasions that peaceful hunt monitors appear the hunt immediately loads up and goes.

Which speaks volumes, if that hunt was hunting within the law then they should have no problems having hunt monitors following them.

 

[spacefaer]

Which speaks volumes, if that hunt was hunting within the law then they should have no problems having hunt monitors following them.

No it means that "peaceful hunt monitors" is a misnomer. And that the hunt has got fed up of the tirade of screaming abuse etc that they're subjected to every time they go out. There are definitely antis who are not peaceful caring animal lovers. There are those who have spent time inside for violence of various kinds and who are paid to go out and intimidate hunts.

 

[Koweyka]

No it means that "peaceful hunt monitors" is a misnomer. And that the hunt has got fed up of the tirade of screaming abuse etc that they're subjected to every time they go out. There are definitely antis who are not peaceful caring animal lovers. There are those who have spent time inside for violence of various kinds and who are paid to go out and intimidate hunts.

Who pays them ?

 

[sakura]

No, we don't. The anti's and hunt saboteurs have now had 18 years to show proof of consistent flouting of the law and have failed to do so. In this day and age when all the cyclists wear Gopro's to monitor bad driving, one would have thought it wouldn't be difficult to find conclusive evidence but anti's are still relying on hearsay, anecdote and "we all know...."

lol, okay

 

[GoldenWillow]

No it means that "peaceful hunt monitors" is a misnomer. And that the hunt has got fed up of the tirade of screaming abuse etc that they're subjected to every time they go out. There are definitely antis who are not peaceful caring animal lovers. There are those who have spent time inside for violence of various kinds and who are paid to go out and intimidate hunts.

We have never, to my knowledge, had any problems with anti's or monitors causing any aggravation to the hunt, in fact I have never heard of any cases of anti's turning up at our hunts meets. The monitors, at least the ones I kjow personally, were actually locals who were fed up of the hunts behaviour. The minute the hunt hunt realised they were being recorded, and this was before they set off, as monitors wanted to record how the hunt and it's followers were parking in the village, they loaded up and went. There was no aggravation on the part of the monitors at all, there was on the part of the hunt followers.

Eta, I do appreciate this is only my experience of my hunt and those situations and that other hunts have been subjected to violent anti's behaviour. In these cases I would understand why they would remove themselves from the situation.

 

[Sandstone1]

No, we don't. The anti's and hunt saboteurs have now had 18 years to show proof of consistent flouting of the law and have failed to do so. In this day and age when all the cyclists wear Gopro's to monitor bad driving, one would have thought it wouldn't be difficult to find conclusive evidence but anti's are still relying on hearsay, anecdote and "we all know...."

well not quite! There are loads and loads of videos showing hunts breaking the law. Hunts have been taken to court over it.

 

[palo1]

well not quite! There are loads and loads of videos showing hunts breaking the law. Hunts have been taken to court over it.

That utterly fails to acknowledge that very few actual convictions, with evidence that is satisfactory to our legal system, under the current law, have been made. That, in spite of every effort made by anti-hunting groups to obtain evidence, to call on the public to ring in any concerns, in spite of dodgy evidence etc. You can find the actual, real data via the Ministry of Justice and I have posted those statistics previously. The most 'seismic' conviction (of Mark Hankinson) has been overturned on appeal. The vast majority of hunting convictions have had nothing to do with trail hunting or the use of hounds . The data and information from anti-hunt groups is very, very poor quality and highly skewed. For example; This statement from the Campaign to strengthen the Hunting Act that '

• Cautions are treated as charges and convictions for purposes of these figures'

In what other situation in the UK would that be acceptable either legally, morally or statistically?

There is a reality on the ground too that is simply not acknowledged by anti-hunt campaigners; that when local communities have the chance to see hounds and support hunts on, for example Boxing Day or at Agricultural shows, at inter-hunt competitions, through the pony club, the level of support far outweighs any level of protest. Boxing Day has become a vile crucible of conflict actually but supporters still line village and town streets to support the hunt in numbers far greater than those that protest about it.

3 years ago I visited a really large agricultural show (The Three Counties) and there was a group of about 8 anti hunt protesters at the gate, abusing visitors to the show, telling everyone at that gate entrance that they were, by visiting, supporting hunting. They were there purportedly on a 'hunting' day (as in hunting competitions were scheduled) though they had the wrong day. I saw not a single person engage or respond to that group of protesters and they had no idea of any visitor's own view of hunting. The public that visit those shows in large numbers and may be seen as some representation of rural life either don't care, don't mind or support hunting being part of that event. The vast majority of people in the UK think that there are FAR more pressing issues related to animal welfare and countryside management than trail hunting, even where there are incidents of appalling behaviour (and I hope Paul O Shea goes down for a very long time indeed as do most people I know). It is just deluded echo-chamber thinking to assert that the vast majority of the British public give a stuff about trail hunting.

 

[ycbm]

• Cautions are treated as charges and convictions for purposes of these figures'

In what other situation in the UK would that be acceptable either legally, morally or statistically?

In every court in the country.

Cautions have to be accepted by the recipient. Accepting a caution means accepting you committed an offence. They appear on DBS checks. If you commit another offence and end up in court, the cautions you have, if relevant to the offence, can be brought up as evidence of propensity to commit the crime and can also be taken into account when sentencing a repeat offender.
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[palo1]

In every court in the country.

Cautions have to be accepted by the recipient. Accepting a caution means accepting you committed an offence. They appear on DBS checks. If you commit another offence and end up in court, the cautions you have, if relevant to the offence, can be brought up as evidence of propensity to commit the crime and can also be taken into account when sentencing a repeat offender.
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A caution is given for a 'minor' crime -not a serious one relating to animal welfare and anti-hunt data does not identify what minor crimes are cautioned. Those cautions could relate to a huge number of things related or unrelated to any animal welfare or Hunting Act incident. It is totally spurious to suggest that those cautions, treated as convictions are evidence of crimes under the Hunting Act.

A caution is not a criminal conviction, but it could be used as evidence of bad character if you go to court for another crime. https://www.gov.uk/caution-warning-penalty#:~:text=A caution is not a,Barring Service (DBS) checks.

 

[ycbm]

A caution is given for a 'minor' crime -not a serious one relating to animal welfare and anti-hunt data does not identify what minor crimes are cautioned. Those cautions could relate to a huge number of things related or unrelated to any animal welfare or Hunting Act incident. It is totally spurious to suggest that those cautions, treated as convictions are evidence of crimes under the Hunting Act.

A caution is not a criminal conviction, but it could be used as evidence of bad character if you go to court for another crime. https://www.gov.uk/caution-warning-penalty#:~:text=A caution is not a,Barring Service (DBS) checks.

Yes, that's pretty much what I said ?‍

I think you would be pretty surprised what serious crimes get cautioned or treated with restorative justice measures in order to get them off police desks and keep them out of taking up court time.
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[palo1]

Yes, that's pretty much what I said ?‍

I think you would be pretty surprised what serious crimes get cautioned or treated with restorative justice measures in order to get them off police desks and keep them out of taking up court time.
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Well you may be right but a caution is absolutely not the same thing as a conviction in law and it is nonsense and genuinely misleading in this context to assert that it is. Do you recognise that the number of convictions under the Hunting Act, from the Ministry of Justice, are tiny and some of those do not relate to trail hunting?

 

[Fred66]

Yes, that's pretty much what I said ?‍

I think you would be pretty surprised what serious crimes get cautioned or treated with restorative justice measures in order to get them off police desks and keep them out of taking up court time.
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Equally how many people accept them to avoid the stress and cost of further actions.
There are many people (across all types of crime) who are arrested and bailed and still on bail months if not years later.

 

[ycbm]

Well you may be right but a caution is absolutely not the same thing as a conviction in law and it is nonsense and genuinely misleading in this context to assert that it is. Do you recognise that the number of convictions under the Hunting Act, from the Ministry of Justice, are tiny and some of those do not relate to trail hunting?

But they didn't assert that, did they? They explained exactly what their figures included. And accepting a caution is accepting that you have committed a criminal offence. The "conviction" is only a semantic difference of whether or not the offence you admit you are guilty of was tried in a court.
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[Clodagh]

It’s worth knowing that if you break the law and accept a caution you are admitting guilt.

 

[YorksG]

It’s worth knowing that if you break the law and accept a caution you are admitting guilt.

It certainly should be explained by the police officer offering the caution, but I have to say that a number of young people who I worked with in the past, did not understand the implications.

 

[sakura]

It is just deluded echo-chamber thinking to assert that the vast majority of the British public give a stuff about trail hunting.

I guess if that makes you feel better you can think that way, but in 50 years' time, I do not believe we will see trail hunting. If the sabs are solely responsible for this (they're not, but again, if it makes you feel better...) just think what else they'll achieve when they're done with hunting!

 

[palo1]

But they didn't assert that, did they? They explained exactly what their figures included. And accepting a caution is accepting that you have committed a criminal offence. The "conviction" is only a semantic difference of whether or not the offence you admit you are guilty of was tried in a court.
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A cautiion is different to a conviction though - particularly in that a caution is issued for minor crimes and may be removed from your record in months. A conviction, tried in court is a very different beast in several ways. The inclusion of cautions in the strenthen the ban data could well include things that are entirely unrelated to hunting activity even though they may have occurred on a hunting day (for example caution for not wearing a seat belt). People do accept a police caution for lots of reasons, including admission of guilt but also because they may be unaware of what the implications are.

 

[ycbm]

I don't know what the point of all this arguing is Palo. You seem determined to believe that the British Public is only against hunting because they are being told to be against hunting and I don't believe that is true.
.

 

[palo1]

I guess if that makes you feel better you can think that way, but in 50 years' time, I do not believe we will see trail hunting. If the sabs are solely responsible for this (they're not, but again, if it makes you feel better...) just think what else they'll achieve when they're done with hunting!

Yes I am very aware of what else sabs have in their sights, as well as the concerns many people have about minority interest activists. Have you read the Hunting Act's legislator's views on the Act; what is your response to Daniel Greenbergs concerns about that? If you are not familiar with what he has said about it you can read it in it's entirety here:-

https://www.danielgreenberg.co.uk/legal-lectures/.

Particularly pertinent bits of his lecture include his statements (as the person who was required to draft this legislation amongst other really significant laws).

I was the drafter not only of the Hunting Act 2004 but of all the Government Bills that preceded it over a period of some years, and I well remember being struck by the fact that of all the legislation in which I had been involved since joining the Parliamentary Counsel Office, including Bills on matters medical, constitutional, social, fiscal and criminal, the first project in relation to which I felt seriously troubled from a moral perspective was over such an outwardly trivial matter in some respects as hunting. Let me be clear: the prohibition of hunting did not trouble me from a personal moral perspective: I do not hunt myself, and I would even go so far as to doubt whether I would personally be ethically justified in doing so, as I do not belong to a community in which it forms either a necessary part of pest control or a cherished cultural tradition. What troubled me was the fact that for the first time in my immediate professional experience the mechanism of the law was being deployed not to further some public policy objective – whether well-founded or not – but to inflict on the whole country the personal moral perspective of the 600 or so citizens who happened to find themselves in the House of Commons at the time....

From its earliest antecedents it was always clear that the Hunting Bill was not a measure aimed at advancing the public policy of animal welfare; at its best it was about morality (and of course to some it was not even that, but simply a piece of thinly disguised class warfare). The clearest proof that this was never a measure aimed at improving animal welfare is that nothing in the construction of the legislation tends towards its effective enforceability as a matter of animal welfare. Apart from the fact that the list of exemptions was deliberately, and on express instructions, framed in a way that would make circumvention obvious and easy, if one were devising an effective mechanism for advancing the welfare of the fox (and none of us will ever forget how the Burns Commission so convincingly justified the public money spent on it by its unutterably brilliant conclusion that on balance, and taking one thing with another, hunting seriously compromises the welfare of the fox being hunted) – if, as I say, one were devising a measure for safeguarding the welfare of the fox one would do it not through a few blunt criminal offences which are easy to circumvent and virtually impossible to prove (even if the Association of Chief Constables hadn’t written to the Government in advance to warn them that they had better things to do on a weekend morning than to hang around in bushes to see if people were following a fox or a drag).

If this had really been an animal welfare measure we would most likely have opted for a regulatory approach, possibly based around a licensing system: doubtless Of-fox would have been very popular, and the Chief Commissioner for Feral Foxes – or Foxcom – would have been a much sought-after sinecure. Joking aside, I suspect that most if not all organised hunts would actively have welcomed a properly founded licensing system as a way of showing their respect for the law, and for the welfare of all the animals and humans involved in the hunting tradition, which irrespective of whether the observer herself or himself chooses to hunt is clearly recognisable as being as respectable as any other community or cultural tradition, and a good deal more respectable than many.

Instead of an effective measure, therefore, the Act and the Bills for it were largely an exercise in what it has now become fashionable to describe as “virtue signalling” by persons who happened to draw their line in the sand of morality in one place in connection with animals, and many of whom would doubtless be incensed if a fortuitous majority of vegetarians in the House of Commons on another occasion sought to outlaw all those whose personal line in the sand stopped short of refraining from eating meat.

An exercise in intolerance, at a time when diversity and cultural sensitivity are meant to be more socially cherished and legally protected than at any other time in the history of the United Kingdom, indeed possibly in the history of the world. But diversity is a difficult ideal, that requires to be nurtured with great care.

I note in passing that it is interesting that it was on this moral or ethical issue of hunting that the House of Commons chose to dispense with the House of Lords and pass the Hunting Act 2004 under the Parliament Act 1911...


So how does this age of unparalleled wealth of equality law come to be known also as a social media age in which bullying, harassment and other forms and expressions of intolerance have flourished as never before? Of course, the availability and anonymity of technology has something to do with this, but I think there is a more fundamental and troubling connection...

As a lawyer, I have often been struck with how little politicians and policymakers recognise the fact that a new law dealing with a particular matter is a sign of failure and not a sign of success. Take the case of racial discrimination, one of the earliest forms of discrimination to be made unlawful, back in the 1960s. Nobody would argue that as a society we have succeeded in conquering or even taming racial discrimination; it is as powerful a poison today as it was in 1965 if not more so, despite the law having had more than half a century to counter it. And that of course is the whole point: law does not and cannot change attitudes, and if anything it entrenches unpleasant attitudes by setting their parameters in the stone of law which by aiming to coerce both creates the temptation, and sets the curriculum, for circumvention and avoidance. Attitudes and ethics can be changed by discussion and by informative education; but they cannot in general be changed by law; and having recourse to legal enforcement by way of declaring certain attitudes unlawful is in general no more than a recognition of failure to change those attitudes by other and more effective methods...

The law of hunting is in my opinion a significant example of an issue where an ephemeral majority in the House of Commons sought to enforce and perpetuate its own opinion on a moral issue without caring whether or not the balance struck by the legislation corresponded to the consensual morality of the country as a whole. It was an attempt by one side of a moral argument to coerce the other into submission. On that basis it was unlikely to be a success on any level, and it has not proved so. Sadly, it leaves unresolved some genuinely important practical issues of animal welfare, and it has widened the gulf between opposing views rather than creating a mechanism for them to explore and refine common ground.



On this forum, anti hunters have never once made a response to me asking about Daniel Greenberg's views. I would very much like to know how posters respond to this lecture - how they feel they stand in relation to his authority as a legislator and legal expert and why they think someone in his position would make such clear statements about this one piece of legislation.

 

[Fred66]

This article is also quite appropriate
https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/tim-bonner/hunting-act_b_6704010.html

The hunt saboteurs who follow the hunts don’t give two hoots about either the law or animal welfare as is frequently shown by their actions. They hide behind this to intimidate (where else would masked individuals flagrantly harassing others be allowed to get away with the actions they take)

Trespass might be a civil matter until you are asked to leave at which point a refusal (along with continued harassment by those seeking to hide their identity to avoid prosecution) becomes a criminal matter.

Breaking the law deliberately (even if you believe that doing so might prevent another crime occurring) is a form of vigilantism and needs to be stopped. Follow from public rights of way, collate evidence and phone the police if you believe a crime is occurring.