I DID not approve of the article Top cop welcomes figures showing a decrease in crime, Echo, July 18.

From time to time I write to the Echo about hunting with dogs, but this despicable sport does not count as a crime for police record purposes and the force regards enforcement of the Hunting Act as a low priority.

Since the Act came into force in February 2005, the International Fund for Animal Welfare and the League Against Cruel Sports have, I believe, successfully taken legal action against hunts in the Westcountry, but the evidence was first submitted to the police, who declined to prosecute.

When I recently wrote to the Chief Constable on this subject, he replied saying he had forwarded my letter to an inspector in the contingency planning unit at police headquarters, Middlemoor.

This department deals with security issues, counter terrorism and major disasters.

If hunting is a low priority why does it fall under contingency planning?

On March 13, Vernon Coaker MP, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Home Office, wrote to Ben Bradshaw, the MP for Exeter, explaining that it was vital to demonstrate visible enforcement of the Hunting Act and “to ensuring that wider public disorder is not generated which would place a greater burden on local forces”.

I shall be happy to assist in generating as much public protest as is needed to convince the police that the cost of not enforcing the Hunting Act will eventually exceed the cost of enforcement, but this is not the way things should be done.

John Phelps

Argyll Road, Exeter

(by email)