Hunting ban 'routinely broken' (From Oxford Mail)

Hunting ban 'routinely broken'

5:59pm Friday 27th March 2009 in Letters

I would like to appeal to those people who ever took the trouble to write letters to their MPs asking them to support a ban on the barbaric practice of hunting.

The Hunting Act has been routinely broken since it came on to the statute book.

Hunters have only to claim an “accident” when their hounds chase or kill a fox, and the case is dismissed by the Crown Prosecution Service.

So, hounds are taken into a copse, run through it, noses down, for long periods, and yet when a fox bolts and the hounds chase it, hunts say this was an “accident”.

This despite the fact that it is exactly the same practice as that always used by hunts to find a fox.

Cubhunting still takes place, with a bird of prey taken along as a convenient, if farcical, prop to support a "falconry" excuse. Terriermen still accompany every foxhunt, exactly as before.

So the wishes of the people, and their elected representatives, are being arrogantly and brutally ridden over.

Hunters’ champion David Cameron, despite his claims to be keen on law and order, has given them a “cast iron commitment” to actually reward their lawless behaviour with a repeal of the Act they so detest.

Please now write another letter, to Prime Minister Gordon Brown, asking the Government to urgently amend the Hunting Act, so that our wild animals can be protected as intended.

Penny Little, Back Way, Great Haseley