Few convictions means no illegal hunting? Ten cases that illustrate why that's not true.

Pro-hunt lobbyists wrong again.

Since the publication of Labour’s animal welfare strategy just before Christmas, there has been ever more desperate pushback from pro-hunt lobbyists like the British Hound Sports Association, the Countryside Alliance and pro-hunt MPs in the UK parliament (overwhelmingly from the ranks of the Conservatives and the far-right Reform UK).

The 07 January parliamentary debate on rural communities was replete with tired old tropes about how the architects of the new ban don’t understand ‘country life’ and that ‘rural communities’ are firmly in support of fox hunting (to read why that’s a lot of old claptrap click here).

But another pro-hunt argument was wheeled out as well.

• Tory MP Stuart Anderson argued that because there have only been a supposed 44 convictions since the Hunting Act was passed in 2004, it follows that hunters must all be law-abiding souls just trying to go out and lawfully trail hunt.

In fact, there have been at least 59 convictions covering 78 charges of illegal hunting under Section 1 of the Hunting Act. Protect the Wild knows of another eight cases that have yet to be heard in court.

It’s important to state clearly that those 59 successful cases only made it into court because of the huge efforts of UK wildlife defenders who meticulously gathered evidence of wildlife crime and handed it to the police.

Why evidence often doesn’t lead to convictions

Just because there is evidence that illegal hunting has taken place doesn’t guarantee a conviction under the current political and legislative regime.

Here are a few reasons why Hunting Act cases often end in failure:

• To start with, wildlife crimes are not notifiable, they are usually treated as minor, and prosecutions for illegal hunting are “summary only” offences usually heard in magistrates’ courts, meaning that typically fewer resources are allocated. Protect the Wild and many other organisations have argued for years that wildlife crimes MUST be taken more seriously.

• Cases never make it to court in the first place because of a lack of will by the Police and Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), or get thrown out because of mistakes made by the CPS and police. This is a consequence of the low priority given to prosecuting Hunting Act offences.

• Police bias in favour of hunts is undoubtedly a big factor. Members of hunt groups are typically from a massively privileged section of society which the police are used to showing deference and respect. They often exert undue influence on police forces. This has been well documented in the case of the Warwickshire Hunt by West Midlands Hunt Saboteurs.

• The CPS regularly deems that the evidence (video, eye witness accounts etc) is insufficient. We all benefit from a presumption of ‘innocent until proven guilty’, but wildlife defenders are repeatedly held to an impossibly high standard of evidence before the CPS will take potential wildlife crime prosecutions forward.

• Crucially, the CPS needs to prove that hunters intended to breach the Hunting Act, an obstacle which could be overcome by including a crime of ‘recklessly allowing a creature to be hunted with hounds’ into the new legislation. Hunts regularly use the smokescreen that they were lawfully trail hunting to avoid conviction. The CPS have to prove beyond reasonable doubt that they weren’t following a trail. Hunts argue that any mammals killed are a result of them accidentally crossing the path of the pack of hounds while the dogs are innocently following a trail. Labour’s proposal to ban trail hunting would do away with this straw-man argument once and for all.

• Hunters are often acquitted on the basis that they were not in control of the hounds when a chase takes place. Again, this could be dealt with by adding a ‘recklessness’ clause into new legislation.

• Exemptions written into the Hunting Act are exploited by hunts every day. Hunts - in particular stag hunts - utilise an exemption in the Hunting Act which allows hunting with a maximum of two dogs for the purpose of supposed ‘research’ or ‘observation’. No research has ever been submitted and peer-reviewed, and in reality two dogs are used in relay, being replaced by two more from the pack when the first two get tired. Flushing to guns is another key exemption in the Hunting Act used by fox and stag hunts, though it is limited to flushing using just two dogs. Hunts typically argue that the dogs are only used to flush out their prey in order for them to be shot and killed.

• Lastly, Hunts often include violent and aggressive members. We know from numerous emails and discussions that witnesses (usually ordinary members of the public from the same villages and towns as the hunt staff and followers) feel intimidated at the prospect of giving evidence against them. Without witnesses, accounts become easier to throw out.
  

---

The above aren’t persuasive on their own. What we need is proof. So here are ten case studies that illustrate just how difficult it is to convict under the Hunting Act.

1) Exmoor Foxhounds: The first ever Hunting Act case (2005)

In 2005, just months after the Hunting Act came into force, Tony Wright of the Exmoor Foxhounds became the first ever person to be convicted after a private prosecution by the League Against Cruel Sports (LACS). LACS’ footage showed foxes being flushed out of their hiding places and the hounds giving chase, followed by a prolonged pursuit. One of the foxes was later shot, which is not prohibited under the Act. Wright said that the foxes were being flushed out purely for the purpose of shooting, but the judge didn’t believe him and said that Wright was instead leading a “traditional hunt”, in breach of the new Hunting Act.

However, Wright appealed and eventually had his conviction overturned in 2007. His appeal hinged on the argument that the hounds were searching for an unspecified mammal for the purpose of flushing them out to be shot. Sadly, the High Court ruled in favour of Wright’s legal team and thus established an extremely damaging precedent that in order to be in breach of the Act hunts had to be using dogs to hunt a specified mammal (meaning the CPS need to prove not only that a hunt was intending to pursue a mammal with hounds but also that they had identified a particular creature to be hunted). The High Court also gave the view that it was down to the CPS to prove that defendants weren’t using one of the many exemptions in the Hunting Act.

2) Vale of White Horse Hunt (2022)

A fox runs from the Vale of White Horse Hunt. Screenshot via HIT

On January 5th 2022 Protect The Wild supported the Hunt Investigation Team (HIT) with their exposé of the Vale of White Horse (VWH) Hunt which saw the group deliberately and intentionally hunt a fox.

In video footage, VWH member and land-owner Verity Drewett can be seen shouting and identifying the fox to the hunt so that she can be hunted. She even ensures the fox is unable to seek safety in a barn and states how she ‘turned him’ before describing the whereabouts of the animal to Duncan Drewett, senior member of the VWH Hunt.

The terriermen responsible for bolting the fox from the barn on 5 January were also filmed doing the same thing at a meet on December 8th 2021. A fox was also seen at the back of the barn this day, and hours later a red coat was seen at the exact same spot as the fox.

The site was filmed for a period of two days, and over this time not a single trail was seen being laid through the farm or anywhere around the farm.

Even though the evidence was clear as day, when the case finally made it to court in 2023 a trail of errors by Wiltshire Police and the CPS led to the case being dismissed. Crucially, the CPS lawyer hadn’t got his act together to ensure that his witnesses would be available to attend court.

3) The Royal Artillery Hunt (2021)

A fox runs from Charles Carter of the Royal Artillery Hunt, via Salisbury Plain Monitors

Salisbury Plain Monitors captured footage on 30 October 2021 showing a fox running ahead of Charles Carter, huntsman of the Royal Artillery Hunt (RAH), as he made a call known as ‘doubling-down’ on his horn to encourage the hounds onto a fox’s scent. The fox then turns toward a covert of trees and, as the cameraperson runs to keep up, a hunt supporter can be heard shouting “hold up” into the covert. ‘Holding up’ refers to the practice of keeping foxes inside a covert to make it easier for hounds to catch and kill them.

The Ministry of Defence (MOD) police charged Carter in May 2022. However, after two plea hearings in which Carter plead not guilty, the charge was dropped due to what Sergeant Clive Wooding told Salisbury Plain Monitors was a “legal technicality”.

In fact, owing to a bank holiday weekend, the MOD Police had missed the file submission date agreed with Swindon Magistrates Court by just one day, a serious procedural error that can lead to severe consequences for a case, ranging from financial penalties to the case being dismissed entirely (”struck out”) - as happened here...

4) The Holderness Hunt (2019)

A vixen is torn apart by the Holderness Hunt - Screenshot from video filmed by Hull Wildlife Protectors.

The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) dropped a seemingly cast-iron case against the Holderness Hunt last year. The Hunt had been caught red-handed on New Year’s Day 2019 allowing its hounds to chase and kill a vixen.

Members of the Holderness were filmed flushing dense, impenetrable gorse. The hounds cried loudly and urgently, signifying that they had picked up a scent. Hunt staff, including then-Hunt Master and Huntsman Charles Clark, responded with horn calls, encouraging them on. The entire hunt and its supporters watched on as a vixen was flushed and ripped apart by the hounds.

The footage from Hull Wildlife Protectors showed all of this perfectly clearly, but the CPS dropped the case anyway claiming the evidence was insufficient.

5) Devon and Somerset Staghounds (2024)

Hunt supporters enjoyed the spectacle of terrified animals running for their lives, before the killing of the stag in Twitchen, Devon - Photo courtesy of North Dorset Hunt Saboteurs

During a hunt at Twitchen in Devon, hunters separated a young stag from his pack. He was pursued by a pair of dogs, who were swapped out at times with others from a pack of hounds. When the desperate animal managed to reach the edge of the moorland and possible safety, the Hunt and their supporters lined up in vehicles to turn him around. Finally, after misjudging a leap of a fence, the hounds caught up with him. A member of the Staghounds shot the stag, and he was carved up.

Ample video footage - including video of the kill itself - was provided to Avon & Somerset Police and Devon & Cornwall Constabulary by Wildlife Guardian and North Dorset Hunt Saboteurs. Police officers took statements and were also present during the hunt itself. However, neither force was willing to take the case to the CPS.

The hunt likely used an exemption to the Hunting Act. The Act allows hunts to hunt with a maximum of two dogs ‘for the purpose of or in connection with the observation or study of the wild mammal.’ However, to the best of our knowledge no hunt has ever released any peer-reviewed research as a result of all their killing. Hounds are used in relay to get round the two dogs rule.

To stop this from happening again, all exemptions in the Hunting Act must be removed. Specifically, “there should be no provision in the Act to employ any number of dogs to hunt wild mammals.”

6) Kimblewick Hunt (2020)

Thames Valley Police refused to prosecute the Kimblewick Hunt despite being provided with footage of them chasing a fox and then feeding his body to the hounds in the moments after the kill. The killing took place on private land, and the landowner said that there was no attempt to call off the hounds. In fact, they were being egged on.

Police interviewed huntsman Andrew Sallis, but decided not to pass the case to the CPS. The Hunt Saboteurs Association (HSA) reported that police officers told the landowner that “in relation to hunting offences we have to have evidence of the suspect having set out intending to hunt a fox that day, which even despite the CCTV evidence we do not have.”

With other comparable offences, such as people arrested under public order legislation at protests or while out sabbing, arrestees would expect to have to take the stand and explain their intentions in court. This is often not so in the case of wildlife crime, and illustrates again how crimes against foxes and other non-human animals are treated as minor. The HSA also suspected police bias in favour of the hunt in this case.

7) Puckeridge Hunt (2021)

Arun Squires, huntsman of the Puckeridge (now the Puckeridge with Essex Union) Hunt was acquitted in 2023 despite drone footage clearly showing him egging on hounds to kill a fox. Squires claimed he had laid a trail six hours earlier, and said that he thought he was encouraging the hounds along a trail. CPS lawyers quite reasonably argued that a trail could not remain in place for over six hours in heavy rain, but Squires said he believed it could. The District Judge trying the case said he suspected that Squires was illegally hunting, but that he had to be sure ‘beyond reasonable doubt’.

North London Hunt Saboteurs, who captured the drone footage used in the case, wrote at the time:

“We will be using what happened on the 27th December 2021, and yesterday at Stevenage Magistrates, to lobby the authorities. The footage we took on our drone, is invaluable, and we will be using it inexhaustibly to raise awareness of the farce of “trail hunting,” the requirement for a ban on “trail hunting,” and the introduction of a recklessness clause. No person of reasonable compunction could ever agree that the law should allow a person to get away with what our footage shows, and the Hunting Act, should be redesigned to properly prevent it.”

8) Belvoir Hunt (2023)

John Holliday was acquitted despite horrific footage taken by Nottingham Hunt Saboteurs of the Belvoir Hunt chasing and killing a fox.

John Holliday, huntsman of the Belvoir Hunt, stood trial in July 2023 for the killing of a fox near Leicester in 2022. Footage supplied to the CPS by Nottingham Hunt Saboteurs (NHS) was crystal clear. The hounds can be seen pursuing a fox as members of the Hunt watch unconcerned. No one from the Hunt tried to call the hounds off, either with their voices or with horns. The fox was savaged and eventually died in the arms of hunt saboteurs, who tried their best to save her.

Surprise, surprise... Holliday argued that he thought the hounds were following a scent, and the court decided it couldn’t conclusively prove that he intended to hunt a mammal with hounds.

According to Action Against Foxhunting (AAF), a call was made to call the hounds back after the fox had already been attacked. The intention of this final call may have been to establish plausible deniability.

AAF emphasised that Holliday was a ‘veteran huntsman’ who should have controlled the hounds. They argued that “accidentally or recklessly killing a wild mammal with hounds should be an offence” and that hunts should “be able to produce proof that they have trained their hounds not to pursue wild mammals.”

9) Wynnstay Hunt (2022)

The case against Chris Woodward of the Wynnstay Hunt collapsed at the eleventh hour. Cheshire Monitors had recorded damning video of illegal hunting, but the person who took the video didn’t attend court because of fear of repercussions from hunt members.

Cheshire Monitors published footage showing hounds from the Wynnstay Hunt chasing a fox across an open field on 7 February 2022. In the video, Woodward rode closely behind the pack and took no action to stop the hounds chasing the fox. The incident occurred in Pickhill, near Wrexham, and was filmed by an independent member of the public.

Fear of violence from hunts is very real. Hunt members and their employees and supporters have been convicted of violent attacks against wildlife defenders and have also attacked houses and property. Since the 2022 case, the Wynnstay’s use of violent rascist thugs to counter the efforts of sabs and monitors has been uncovered. In July 2023, a hunt supporter who was filmed performing a Nazi salute pleaded guilty to aggravated harassment. In July 2024, a Wynnstay Hunt security guard was convicted of racial abuse.

10) Dunston Harriers (2022)

In 2023, three members of the Dunston Harriers were acquitted in Great Yarmouth. They had faced charges of illegally hunting after Norfolk and Suffolk Against Live Quarry Hunting recorded the Harriers’ hounds chasing a hare. The filmed chase took place in a field north of Lopham Grove in Fersfield, Norfolk.

Geoffrey Block, Josh Worthing-Hayes and Lewis Ryland were eventually found not guilty on the grounds that Block was - according to the court’s finding - not in control of the hounds and the three defendants couldn’t run to stop the dogs (if they had wanted to, that is) because the field where the chase took place had been freshly drilled ready for planting. The three also claimed that a trail had earlier been laid. In summary, the case ended in acquittal because the CPS didn’t 100% prove their intention to illegally hunt.

This problem of proving intention could be easily rectified by creating an offence of allowing the hunting of a mammal with dogs through recklessness.

---

The above ten cases clearly show that because there has been ‘only’ 59 convictions under the Hunting Act it doesn’t follow that hunts have been busy lawfully trail hunting for the last two decades.

Protect the Wild’s Rob Pownall emphasised that the key to halting this cycle of failed prosecutions was to ban trail hunting. He said:

“Time and again, cases collapse not because hunts are innocent, but because trail hunting provides a ready-made loophole. Even when foxes are clearly chased and killed on camera, prosecutions fail because intent is almost impossible to prove under the current legislation.”

We need your help to make hunting a thing of the past:

• Read Protect the Wild’s proposal for a workable ban on the hunting of mammals with hounds.

• Take a look at our report on how difficult it really is to get a hunting conviction.

• Sign our petition calling for a proper ban on hunting.

• Read our 2025 report, ‘The True Face of Hunting with Hounds’.

• While parliament is debating a renewed ban on ‘trail hunting’ and the closing of loopholes in the law, wildlife is still in peril on a daily basis. Please consider making 2026 the year you join your local group of hunt saboteurs or monitors.

Image of John Holliday via Countryside Alliance/YouTube screenshot. Video of Chris Woodward of the Wynnstay hunting courtesy of Cheshire Monitors. Image of fox running from the Vale of White Horse Hunt via screenshot/Hunt Investigation Team. Image of fox running from the Royal Artillery Hunt via Salisbury Plain Monitors. Photo of stag hunt in Twitchen, Devon courtesy of North Dorset Hunt Saboteurs. Puckeridge Hunt footage via North London Hunt Saboteurs. Picture of the Holderness Hunt’s hounds ripping up a vixen via Hull Wildlife Defenders.

Many thanks to all the sabs and monitors who continue to take considerable risks to document cruelty and lawbreaking by hunts.

---

Be part of a growing movement backing Protect the Wild

Protect the Wild is independent by design.
We don’t take money from corporations, industry bodies, or political interests.

Everything we do - undercover investigations, hard-hitting animations, fearless journalism, reports, and campaigns — is powered by thousands of ordinary people giving a few pounds a month.

Whether it be shutting down the Guga hunt and ending hunting with hounds or taking on the bird shooting industry and speaking out for Badgers in the campaign to end the cull.

If you believe British wildlife deserves defenders who won’t compromise become a monthly supporter today.