Two men guilty of cruelty to a fox

TWO men, captured on video inflicting suffering on a captive fox, have been found guilty of breaching The Animal Welfare Act.

A shot from the Hunt Sabateur’s video showing a fox being pulled from a pipe

Kimblewick Hunt President at the time, Mark Vincent and another employee, Ian Parkinson, were on trial at Oxford Crown Court for an incident that took place on January 1, 2019.   The two will be sentenced on November 26, and have been advised by the Judge to expect a custodial sentence.

The prosecution came about after footage was passed to the Hunt Saboteurs Association by its Covert Film Unit showing the hunt terrier men using draining rods to force the fox, that they’ve been holding captive, out of a drainage pipe, clearly being heard communicating with the huntsman, agreeing when the best time is to release the fox which, the HSA maintain, is given a brief head start so that the hunt riders experience a chase rather than a quick kill. A pack of hounds involved in the New Year’s Day hunt arrived in the woodland in Moreton near Thame, moments later.

According to a report by the BBC, both defendants denied the charge but neither gave evidence. But Stephen Lomax, a witness for the defence, suggested the fox had been pulled out by its hind legs and tail and would have been ‘adequately supported’. Veterinary surgeon, David Martin, goes on the report, said that pulling a fox buy its tail could have ‘serious effects’ on the animal would ’cause injury to it that way’, but added that he didn’t believe it was possible to cause suffering to a fox by pushing the drainage rods down the tunnel.

The Judge, Kamlesh Rana, said the fox was ‘trapped in the earth and was faced with drainage rods at one end and humans at the other’. She described the defendants’ actions as ‘deliberate and pre-mediated’ and was clear that the offence crossed the custody threshold.

Prosecutor Peter Rymon said that the men, had ‘clearly placed the fox’ in the path of a hunt at the time the hunt was arriving, and that ‘the rodding caused it unnecessary suffering and pulling it out by the tail enhanced that’.

Lee Moon, Spokesperson for the Hunt Saboteurs Association, stated: “We’re pleased that justice has been done and look forward to Vincent and Parkinson receiving the prison sentence their actions deserve.

“What we also want to see is further prosecutions against the huntsman, Hunt masters and the Kimblewick Hunt itself. This was clearly a criminal conspiracy between the two defendants and the rest of the hunt to release a captive fox to be illegally hunted and all those involved should be punished. We also expect the Countryside Alliance to condemn this hunt and for the Masters of Foxhounds Association to kick them out of the association. Anything less will be tacit approval of animal cruelty and illegal hunting.”

Parkinson, of Lower Road, Haddenham, and Vincent, of Kimblewick, Aylesbury, were found guilty of one count of causing unnecessary suffering to a protected animal.

ED. The Kimblewick Hunt has been denied permission by Thame Town Council to meet as usual, in the town centre on New Year’s Day 2020, following the guilty verdict.

SOURCES: THE Hunt Sabateurs Association & BBC News website