Two found guilty of illegally hunting foxes with dogs

Johh Greenall leaving court John Greenall did not give evidence in his defence at court

Related Stories

A hunt master and one of his staff have been convicted of illegally hunting fox cubs with dogs after they were filmed by campaigners.

The campaigners hid in a wood in Sutton on the Hill, Derbyshire, to film the hunt in October.

Hunt master John Greenall, 52, of the Meynell and South Staffordshire Hunt and from Wootton, Derbyshire, was fined £3,000.

Hunt worker Glenn Morris, 44, of Tutbury, Staffordshire, was fined £250.

The footage obtained by the two campaigners was shown as evidence in court.

Fox expert Professor Stephen Harris told the court that, in the video, the excited squeals of foxhounds could be heard inside the wood.

Fox being hunted The footage showed young foxes being hunted

He said: "That sound is, they've found a fox, it's fresh, they're on top of it."

The defence had argued the dogs were exercising, following artificial scent.

Both men were found guilty of hunting a wild mammal with a dog at Southern Derbyshire Magistrates' Court after a two-day trial.

District Judge Caroline Goulborn said that, during a police interview, Greenall had given an innocent explanation about what had been happening that day.

However, as he had not been willing to give evidence in his own defence, she said "perhaps that innocent explanation would not bear scrutiny".

More on This Story

Related Stories

The BBC is not responsible for the content of external Internet sites

BBC Derby

Weather

Derby

15 °C 10 °C

Features & Analysis

Elsewhere on the BBC

  • Green city A leaf from nature's book

    Cities rely on systems which pollute our world, but that will all change in the future, writes Rachel Armstrong

Programmes

  • A graphic of a person and the Earth respresenting the world wide webClick Watch

    David Reid visits Cern to find out about the plans to restore the world's first web page

BBC © 2013 The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Read more.

This page is best viewed in an up-to-date web browser with style sheets (CSS) enabled. While you will be able to view the content of this page in your current browser, you will not be able to get the full visual experience. Please consider upgrading your browser software or enabling style sheets (CSS) if you are able to do so.