Focus: Catch me if you can

“This isn’t a law about cruelty. If that were true it wouldn’t allow me to hunt rabbits or blow foxes to bits with a shotgun. This is personal. It’s not foxes they love, it’s people like me they hate.” Town versus country, he believes.

So he will continue to hunt and his motto has become “Catch me if you can”.

The chances of that happening are minimal. The terms of the ban and the practical difficulties of policing it mean that John and his hunt are unlikely to be caught unless they are pursued by helicopter. The police have better things to do.

Yesterday, thousands of huntsmen staged similar protests, riding out with hounds in a “day of defiance” against the ban. The Countryside Alliance estimated that 500,000 people turned out either to ride or support more than 250 hunts across the country.

Among them were members of the Rothschild and Guinness families, who support the Tedworth hunt. Otis Ferry, son of the singer Bryan, rode in Shropshire and Jeremy Irons, the actor, and Sir John Mortimer, the writer, were out to support the Bicester hunt.

All of these headed off with lawful intent. Under the new law they are allowed to follow an artificial scent or that of a dead fox dragged through the fields. If they come across a live one? They must control the hounds as best they can.

It is a recipe for confusion. As Roger Scruton, the philosopher, explained before going out with the Beaufort hunt. “We can’t say exactly what we will do — I think we’re going to go on hound exercise,” he said. “The park is rich in foxes, however.”

What might happen? “Who knows,” replied Scruton. “If the hounds do anything naughty like pursue foxes, obviously we will shout ‘stop! stop!’.”

At the start of the Bicester hunt, John Jackson, chairman of the Countryside Alliance (CA), summed up the mood. “The intention will not be to hunt a fox,” he said, “but it’s quite difficult to get that over to the hounds.”

Despite the huntsmen’s defiance, anti-hunt campaigners believe they have nothing more to prove.

“We’ve won,” said Mike Hobday, spokesman for the League Against Cruel Sports (Lacs). “We don’t need to protest any more. (Hunting with dogs) is a criminal act carrying a £5,000 fine. Now we intend to assist the police in enforcing the law.”

That view is shared by the International Fund for Animal Welfare (Ifaw), which will deploy “monitors” around the country to track the activities of hunts. Caught in the middle are the police, who have drawn up guidelines weaving a cautious path between enforcing the ban and recognising the practical limitations of doing so.

The result this weekend is that after decades of heated debate there is a ban. Yet yesterday towns and villages across the country played host to hunting’s tableau.

AS THE last “tally-ho” loomed last week, even Prince Charles made his opinion known by venturing out with the Meynell hunt in Derbyshire. It was the death of old England, said some. Fox off and good riddance, said others.

On Thursday Lord Woolf, the lord chief justice, sitting with two other members of the Appeal Court, ruled against a last-ditch attempt by the CA to have the ban overturned on what amounted to a constitutional technicality.

In truth the battle had already changed in the four months since the House of Commons voted for a ban. The CA had stopped pronouncing the end of a way of life and started preaching that, even with a ban, it would be business as usual.

As their legal advisers examined the Hunting Act 2004 it had become apparent that, with a little imagination, hunts could continue. The law allows riding out with hounds for exercise and the tracking of scents. It also allows huntsmen to use up to two dogs to flush foxes and stags from woodland and undergrowth, provided the quarry are not killed by the dogs but dispatched by shooting.

Both the Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) and the Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo) concede that accidents may happen.

Alastair McWhirter, Acpo’s spokesman on rural affairs and Suffolk’s chief constable, explained: “If hounds go after a fox while out exercising or scent-hunting, it’s up to the hunt to control them. As long as they are genuinely trying to stop the hounds, they will not be hunting. If a fox is killed in these circumstances it will be an accident.

“However, if hounds are encouraged to go after a fox and no attempt is made to stop them, that is an offence.”

He admitted that what huntsmen do on private land in small groups will be hard to detect, though he insisted forces would take action if they had sufficient evidence.

The act gives officers the power to arrest an entire hunt and the police will be able to demand access to lists of hunt members. It is more likely, however, that “symbolic leaders” would be arrested if an offence is suspected.

McWhirter also warned hunters not to misunderstand the implications of a conviction. If found guilty of the “summary offence” of hunting with dogs, the conviction will not be put on the police national computer, so to that extent offenders will not have a police “record”.

However, the conviction will be on record at magistrates’ courts. Offenders will also have to declare the offence on job and passport applications and on other legal documents, such as a driving licence application. Failure to do so would be an offence.

McWhirter has spent months talking to hunts and is convinced trouble will be restricted to a few “hotheads”. For them he had a stark warning: “If there are those who break the law and wish to martyr themselves, we will oblige.”

The Association of British Insurers (ABI) has also sent out a clear message to hunt masters that they risk invalidating their public liability insurance if there is evidence the hunt was carrying out an illegal act when an accident occurs. But, again, it will be difficult to prove the hunt was acting illegally.

Ferry, joint master of the South Shropshire hunt, said opponents to the ban would give the government its “biggest battle since the Tories and their failed poll tax”.

“The Tories lost that battle and Labour will lose this one,” he said. “People in the country will not stop hunting, you can be sure of that.” Though he said he would not knowingly break any law, he added: “You can be sure we will be giving the law a pretty severe test.”

Mark Shotton, leader of the South Durham hunt in Tony Blair’s Sedgefield constituency, laughed when asked whether Saturday’s meet would stay within the law. He pointed out that “it is virtually impossible to stop a dog once it is in for the kill”.

Lindsay Hill, a 46-year-old voluntary worker and mother of two, is hardly the image of a criminal, but believes the ban is “plain wrong”.

“I am prepared to be a martyr for what I believe in and if that means I have to break the law and go to jail, so be it,” said Hill, who hunts with the United Pack in Shropshire.

If the experience of the ban in Scotland is anything to go by, the likelihood of prison is small. Two years since the ban in Scotland, 10 hunts still operate and the number of foxes they kill (by shooting) has almost doubled. Only late last year was a huntsman charged with breaking the law. He was found not guilty.

SO IF it looks like a hunt, sounds like a hunt and smells like a hunt, has nothing really changed? Kevin Till, Ifaw’s principle hunt monitor for the past 20 years, insists the ban is enforceable.

“We’ll be watching them,” he said. “If they kill a fox once it might be an accident, but if they kill again and again it will become clear to the police they are taking the mick.” The RSPCA has also served notice it will consider pursuing private prosecutions where it believes there is sufficient evidence. Ifaw also says its members would be happy to foot the bill for a test case. Politicians who pressed for the ban are adamant it can and must be enforced. Ann Widdecombe, the anti-hunting Tory MP, said: “My view is that this is now law, and because I am a believer in zero tolerance, I think the law should be enforced”. Michael Foster, Labour MP for Worcester who led the charge against hunting with a private members’ bill in Labour’s first term, claimed quiet satisfaction. “It’s always nice to bring a matter to its conclusion,” he said. “We promised the electorate and it’s satisfying to deliver.” The reality, however, is that the ban may exist but the battle continues. The next phase is likely to be testing the practicalities of the law in the courts. It promises to keep the issue alive politically. It is also interesting to note the shift in public opinion. Six years ago, supporters of a ban outnumbered opponents by nearly 3:1 (63% versus 24%), according to a Mori/BBC survey. A repeat of the survey last week found the ratio had dropped to 2:1 (47% versus 26%). Neutrality is growing, with a quarter of people saying they “neither support nor oppose” a ban. In that light the impasse illustrated yesterday by massed hunts riding out, ostensibly not to kill foxes, may be a fitting result. As one observer put it: “Hunting is banned; tally-ho!”