Why banning trail-hunting might not stop foxes, deer and hares from being killed

Banning trail-hunting as Labour promised will not stop hunts from killing foxes and deer because hunters would find other ways around the law, a new report warns.

The report, entitled ‘Broken Law – How the Hunting Act has Failed’, was drawn up by hunting opponents who claim the law is too easily abused, leaving wildlife with too little protection.

This December marks 20 years since the Hunting Act was passed, before coming into force two months later.

Labour promised in its general election manifesto to end trail-hunting, which involves following a scent trail laid by an animal or artificially. The aim is to replicate a traditional hunt without harming the animal and is not currently covered by the Hunting Act.

But activists from Action Against Foxhunting set out 23 recommendations on how the law should be amended to make it effective – including banning hounds from all private property without landowner permission.

The report, seen by The Independent and which will be sent to environment secretary Steve Reed, other MPs and the National Wildlife Crime Unit, bases its findings on 25 cases in which a fox, stag, mink or hare was chased or killed by a hunt.

Of those, 11 cases were dropped either by police or the Crown Prosecution Service and did not lead to a prosecution, and 12 resulted in a prosecution but a not guilty verdict.

Several cases failed because the prosecution “could not prove beyond all reasonable doubt” that the person in control of the hounds intended to hunt a wild mammal.

“All a huntsman has to do when his hounds are pursuing a fox is to look in the other direction and he knows he will have a viable defence,” the report states.

It cites a case in Yorkshire when a fox was chased and badly wounded. A villager described to the court how hounds ran around “causing chaos and fear” and he said he was “in fear of being bitten”.

The hounds ran around a field whose owner had previously asked the hunt not to enter his property. The hunt master assured him they would leave but later, the hounds chased a fox through the resident’s garden.

He described the animal as being “in the most horrific state I have ever seen a fox, covered from its shoulders to the tip of its nose in blood”.

Hounds chased after it, and the witness said he put up his arms to stop three approaching riders but that one accelerated, forcing him to jump out of the way.

The defence submitted no case to answer, arguing the hounds “were not under the control of any human”, so intent to hunt could not be proven.

The judge said the Hunting Act was difficult to interpret and apply, and difficult for the CPS to prosecute under.

It also cites other cases where police dropped their investigation because the hunt said killing the fox was an accident.

In another case, a judge believed the hunt guilty on the balance of probability, but could not deliver that verdict because the test was “beyond reasonable doubt”. The prosecuting barrister said: “The same quality of evidence in a murder trial would have led to an easy conviction.”

Pip Donovan, one of the report’s authors, said: “We are terrified the government will get it wrong, and we’ll have another 20 years of killing in the countryside, so instead of starting with the Hunting Act and suggesting changes based on theory, we are starting with events in the field and trying to find a way to put a stop to the killing forever. Just banning trail-hunting won’t cut it.

“The Act doesn’t ban hunting – it enables it because, after the first line about hunting with dogs, everything else is allowed.

“The report will also be very good for police training. No one else has created this album of failed cases.”

The recommendations include:

A spokesperson for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs said: “This government was elected on a mandate to introduce the most ambitious plans to improve animal welfare in a generation – that is exactly what we will do.

“We will ban trail-hunting that allows for the illegal hunting of foxes, deer, and hares.”