Friday, 21 December 2012

Heythrop Hunt members admit illegal fox hunting


Members of an Oxfordshire-based hunt that Prime Minister David Cameron has previously ridden with have been fined for hunting foxes illegally.

Richard Sumner and Julian Barnfield, of the Heythrop Hunt, pleaded guilty at Oxford Magistrates' Court to charges brought by the RSPCA.

Film gathered by anti-hunt monitors over four days during the 2011/12 season was played in court.

Sumner and Barnfield were the master and huntsman of the hunting group.

They pleaded guilty to four separate counts, on four separate occasions, of unlawfully hunting a wild fox with dogs.

Heythrop Hunt Ltd also pleaded guilty to four counts of the same charge.

'Landmark case'
The presiding magistrate called the RSPCA's £327,000 costs "staggering".

He said the public could question whether the charity's funds to bring the case to court could have been better spent.


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