Fox hunting on trial: is this really justice?

John Petrie, senior campaigns manager, at the League Against Cruel Sports

When I was asked to write a blog about the trial of the Warwickshire Hunt, I hoped to write a piece about a fox hunt, for once, being brought to justice. Unfortunately, I simply can’t do that.   

Warwickshire Hunt’s whipper-in, Benjamin Halsall, tried to hide behind the smokescreen of ‘trail’ hunting but was found guilty of illegal fox hunting and ordered to pay £2,000. A paltry sum for a hunt like the Warwickshire. Even a guilty verdict doesn’t bring proper justice.   

It’s great news that the hunt put trail hunting on trial and lost, but the punishment doesn’t fit the crime. It’s long past time this tired old excuse was legislated against, and it’s definitely time that being found guilty meant a proper punishment.  

There are many things you can be fined for in the UK, including a potential £2,000 for leaving a note on someone’s car. Being ordered to pay £2,000 for hunting a wild animal and watching it torn apart by hounds isn’t justice. It’s a farce.   

I have my doubts that the authors of the Hunting Act intended fox hunting to be treated on a par with writing a note. I suspect they’d also be appalled to hear of the secret deal between the Warwickshire Hunt and the local police. And yet here we are.  

Halsall and his friends in the hunt claimed to be trail hunting, that their hounds chasing and killing a fox right in front of them was some sort of unavoidable accident. Thanks to Becky Forrester from the Three Counties Hunt Saboteurs, who was there to record the whole thing, we know the truth.  

You can watch Becky’s footage for yourself here, but I warn you that it is graphic and upsetting. I wish I’d never seen it, but sometimes it’s good to see the evidence with your own eyes.  

Both the damning footage and the hunt’s failure to get away with it show that trail hunting is nothing more than a lie. A fantasy concocted by hunts to avoid the consequences of their brutal actions. 

It’s good to see trail hunting exposed in court but we know that, even putting aside the trivial fines, guilty verdicts are few and far between. Quite clearly, the law isn’t fit for purpose.   

We need to see hunting laws strengthened to ban trail hunting, close the loopholes in the Hunting Act, and to introduce custodial sentences for those who continue to derive pleasure from this so-called ‘sport’. The time for change is now.