LAMPING: Police share harrowing account of deer mutilation

Two men with 'hands covered in blood' caught by police after killing a deer

Two men have been given a slap on the wrist at Lincoln magistrates court after a lamping incident in Lincolnshire. The men used a dog to hunt, maim and kill the deer in what police described as "a scene from a thriller".

Although relatively unknown compared with hunting with a pack of dogs, lamping is common in the UK. It is so-called because hunters use high-voltage spotlights to light up areas of the countryside at night to reveal animals. When an animal is caught in the beam of light, they are dazzled and freeze. The lamper will then use either a gun or hound(s) to make the kill. Read our explainer article on lamping here.

Lincolnshire Police stated that Richard Bostock, 41, and Daniel Simpson, 34, were stopped by officers on 19 April, after a witness reported suspected lamping in woods. The police reported that a deer's intestines were found at the reported location.

'Covered in blood'

The force said:

"When the officers from our Specialist Operations Team stopped Bostock and Simpson, what they found in the vehicle was a scene from a thriller. Their hands were covered in blood, there was a large bull lurcher type dog in the van and a dead fallow deer.

They also had with them lamps, a power pack and the combination lock cut off a gate. The lock was on the gate to prevent access and costly damage to farmland. Both men were subsequently arrested for offences under the Hunting Act."

A long, slow death

The police stated:

"As part of the investigation the deer was sent off for a postmortem. The veterinary pathologist found the deer had probably died from cardiovascular shock after haemorrhage owing to incisions and stab wounds to the neck along with respiratory distress caused by a hole in the thorax. The attack would have had severe welfare implications for the animal. The wounds to the thorax and neck would not have led to the rapid death of the animal."

The Rural Crime Team's DC Aaron Flint said:

"The deer had been gralloched in the woodlands, that means they had cut out the intestines of the animal. The postmortem found this fallow deer was killed and died a horrible and cruel death."

Image from Lincolnshire Police Facebook page

The law

The majority of the time lamping with dogs is a legal activity, and individuals can use dogs to catch rats and rabbits (which have little protection under England and Wales' law) or use them to retrieve a shot hare or fox. The two men were charged under the Hunting Act, though, which made it illegal to use dogs to chase wild animals such as foxes and deer. While this incident wouldn’t seem to be covered by the legislation, the men were presumably charged under this Act because they likely admitted that they used the dog to attack the deer.

An alternative would have been to charge them under the Deer Act 1991, which criminalises various activities including shooting deer with the ‘wrong’ firearms and going onto land without the consent of the owner or occupier ‘in search or pursuit of deer with the intention of taking, killing or injuring’. The police have the power to stop and search a person, and any vehicle, animal, weapon or other thing the person may be using, if there are reasonable grounds to believe an offence under the Deer Act has been or is being committed. The men could also have been charged under night poaching legislation, especially because they were found with a lock that they'd cut off a gate.

The magistrate handed the men seven-year Criminal Behaviour Orders (CBOs) and confiscated their dog. The police stated:

"[The CBOs] ban them from being in Lincolnshire and four other counties with a dog between 31 August and 30 April. They must pay fines and costs of £716. Additionally, Simpson was handed a Community Order and must complete 180 hours of unpaid work.

Their dog and equipment were forfeited. Happily, Billy the dog will be rehomed."

It is of course welcome news that these two men were caught and prosecuted at all, but someone found guilty of an offence under the Hunting Act "shall be liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding level 5 on the standard scale." The fine for Level 5 offences (committed after 2015) is unlimited, but the average fine for breaches of the Hunting Act was estimated in 2022 to be just £406 (over the preceding five years).

In Protect the Wild's opinion this slap on the wrist will do little to stop two men who have no regard for the law and repeatedly insisted in court that they were doing ‘nowt wrong’ and were "just out for the craic".

Ban lamping

As outlined above, lamping in England, Wales and Scotland is, mostly, still a legal activity, thanks mainly to lobby groups who claim they need to 'control vermin' (ie foxes) on their land. Protect the Wild argues that the Labour government needs to follow in the footsteps of Guernsey, which recently made it illegal.

• Lamping is unnecessarily cruel - it's time that the government takes serious action to protect our wildlife and outlawed it once and for all.

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