Police must take note of Hunting Act
COLIN RICHEY tells readers the Hunting Act takes up too much of the time of police officers who have too many real problems to contend with on a daily basis (More important issues than hunting, Letters, April 24.) My experience is that Devon and Cornwall Constabulary spends no time on preventing wild mammals being hunted for sport.
A colleague and I told an inspector at Totnes Police Station we had reasonable grounds to suspect a local hunt was contravening the Hunting Act 2004. We requested the inspector to send two police officers to the hunt to investigate our complaints. The inspector told us he did not have the resources to undertake an investigation, but said he would send two officers if they became available.
When my colleague and I next visited the hunt, we were surprised and very pleased to see two police officers in attendance, but when we attempted to explain our reasons for suspecting that unlawful hunting may be taking place, the officers were not in the slightest interested in what we had to say.
The officers then reluctantly admitted that they were from Ashburton Police Station and they were there to protect visiting French huntsmen from hunt saboteurs.
It is disappointing that Mr Richey does not consider this to be a real problem. I think it is, or should be, a matter of serious concern to all law-abiding citizens in Devon and Cornwall.
John Phelps
Argyll Road, Exeter
Comments
by Dutch, Exeter
Saturday, May 01 2010, 6:21PM
“John, I find it incredible that people can be so blinkered that they want to divert the scarce, minute and absolutely unsatisfactory police cover from people who daily get harassed, assaulted, robbed, mugged and less routinely, raped and murdered, in favour of a handful of foxes. If the hunt monitors have this incontrovertible evidence, they should bring private prosecutions or have the RSPCA bring them. I would rather the limited resources of the police are spent on better monitoring of paedophiles and protecting the law-abiding citizens from harassment and assault, which even now, before the inevitable post election budget cuts, they seem unable to do! Whilst I agree with the saying: ¿The unspeakable in pursuit of the uneatable!¿ nobody is forced to take part in hunting and the finite police resources should be prioritised for the benefit of human crime victims, and not frittered away on low priority hobby-horses.”