HOUNDED BY THE RSPCA
When protesters reported a wealthy hunt to Britain’s top animal charity, it smelled blood. Now it’s going for the kill... in a court case using YOUR donations
JUST before 11am on a crisp March morning, 30 men and women from one of England’s most fashionable hunts gathered near Dorchester. Resplendent in their distinctive ‘True Blue’ livery, Dorset’s Cattistock Hunt members passed around the stirrup cup for the traditional toast before the huntsman blew his horn and the riders cantered off, following their yelping hounds.
At the fore was the hunt’s joint master, the Honourable Mrs Charlotte Townshend. Known affectionately to her friends as Blot, Mrs Townshend is rightly proud of the hunt’s 254-year history. In the past both Viscountess Galway and Lady Teresa Agnew have been masters, and today its 250 members include entrepreneur Johnnie Boden, who is vice-president of its pony club, and supporters include actor Martin Clunes, whose daughter was also a member of the pony club.
On that damp morning of March 11, huntsman Will Bryer decided to take the hunt through picturesque Hardy country on to land west of Weymouth, above the famous Jurassic Coast, where – in keeping with hunting laws – a scented trail had been laid earlier for the hounds to follow.
But what none of those riding that morning could have known was that the day’s events would threaten to become a cause celebre, which is now the subject of a court battle.
The Cattistock Hunt, one of the richest in the country, has long been a target for anti-hunt protesters determined to prove it flouts hunting laws and that, instead of ensuring the hounds follow the trail, the Cattistock willingly allows them to chase foxes whose scent they pick up.
And in this pursuit, the anti-hunt campaigners have a willing part- ner: the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.
Many in the hunting fraternity believe that the court case, in which a member of the Cattistock is accused of a single count of breaching the hunting ban by pursuing a wild mammal with hounds, is the result of collusion between the activists and a partisan RSPCA.
They are convinced that the charity has become an increasingly politicised lobby, bent on pursuing an obsessive and costly vendetta against England’s hunting elite. As one insider observed: ‘The lunatics are running the asylum. The RSPCA has become indoctrinated in an animalrights philosophy, and that is its downfall.
‘The charity is a massive institution with 1,400 employees and an income of more than £120million, and yet it is run by a board of 21 trustees, few with experience of running a business, and some who are, frankly, staunch animal-rights activists.’
It has even been suggested that, abetted by animal-rights activists, the RSPCA has been targeting wellheeled hunting communities in a cynical bid to raise its profile.
Many, too, are concerned that the charity is ‘wasting’ too much of its fortune – made up mostly from donations and legacies – chasing minor misdemeanours. Already it is responsible for 80 per cent of animal-welfare prosecutions in England and Wales, more than half of which are thrown out of court or result in acquittals.
The Mail on Sunday reported in October that the RSPCA had spent £22.5million on prosecutions in two years, and today we can reveal that the charity has been forced to take out an overdraft facility with its bank, Coutts, for the first time in its 190year history.
The Cattistock case epitomises the battle for the soul of the British countryside. So far as the hunters are concerned, they have today become the hunted – followed and filmed by a battery of anti-hunt activists including Dorset hunt saboteurs, the antihunt group Protect Our Wild Animals, and monitors for the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW).
They hand over yards of footage to the RSPCA in the hope that it will provide evidence upon which the charity can press charges.
In the dock is Will Bryer, Mrs Townshend’s fellow huntmaster. Mr Bryer has pleaded not guilty at Weymouth Magistrates’ Court to breaching the hunting ban and will mount a vigorous defence when the case comes to trial in the spring.
His solicitor, Jamie Foster, insists Mr Bryer is innocent. ‘He will vigorously contest what appears to be an extremely weak case,’ he says. ‘I am very surprised it has made it this far.’
The prosecution’s case will hinge on footage filmed as the hunt passed the picturesque village of Langton Herring. Taken with a hand-held camera by Kevin Hill, from the IFAW, it was subsequently passed to the RSPCA rather than to the police or the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS). It is said to depict Mr Bryer allowing two hounds to chase a fox, allegedly in breach of the Hunting Act 2004.
The IFAW has been delighted by the prosecution. Its members and fellow activists have long disliked the Cattistock Hunt, seeing it as symbolic of hunting’s aristocratic past.
As one anti-hunt activist explains: ‘It is run along feudal lines. Landowners and farmers are encouraged to give permission for the hunt to make use of their land – there might, for example, be the offer of the loan of some farm equipment you especially need.’
Mrs Townshend has been singled out as someone who represents everything the activists despise about Britain’s hunting history.
A committed wildlife conservationist, Mrs Townshend has already been targeted by animal-rights activists, who mistakenly believed she supported trials for the Government’s badger cull and would allow one to take place on her Dorset estate.
She was forced to make a ‘painful decision’ to step down as patron of the Dorset Wildlife Trust, fearing that the work of the charity, founded by her grandfather more than half a century ago, would be compromised by her continued presence. Activists inun-
SECURITY had to be stepped up after a picture of the house was published on Stop The Cull’s website with the words ‘Badger killer Charlotte Townshend’ written, graffiti-style, in bright red.
As for the court case, it is understood that even Kevin Hill, who shot the footage, is privately doubtful that Mr Bryer will be convicted. He has admitted to friends that the film was taken from some distance and identification will be disputed.
Whatever the outcome, the case will once again turn the spotlight on the close relationship between the RSPCA and the animalrights movements.
During the autumn, an independent report by Stephen Wooler, a former chief inspector of the Crown Prosecution Service Inspectorate, recommended that the charity should pass on any evidence of lawbreaking to either the police or CPS. dated the DWT’s Facebook and Twitter pages with abusive messages. It became a systematic campaign eventually linked to the discovery of ‘suspicious figures’ hanging around Mrs Townshend’s home. Since then, the charity has indicated that in future it will abide by the Wooler recommendations.
The case, however, calls that commitment into question. Why, for example, is the RSPCA mounting this prosecution and not the police?
Tim Bonner, director of campaigns for the Countryside Alliance, said: ‘It clearly cannot make an objective decision. We believe this decision involving Cattistock has a blatant political element to it.
‘The Cattistock has been harassed by employees of animalrights organisations carrying out covert surveillance for almost ten years and, until now, there has not been a single prosecution, let alone a conviction.’
He believes the Cattistock has no
case to answer. ‘We have every confidence that Cattistock was operating entirely legally on the day in question and we don’t believe the evidence justifies the prosecution,’ he says.
Even Graham Forsyth, an anti-hunt supporter who regularly monitors hunts and reports his finding to the charity, admits that the Cattistock Hunt is well organised. ‘I would say it is one of the better managed and more disciplined hunts, despite some of the incidents recorded against it in the past,’ he says. ‘Generally speaking, if Charlotte and her husband are out riding, things tend to be calmer because they tolerate us – although they ignore us – and try to ensure none of the others gets involved either.’
So why is the RSPCA so keen to prosecute Mr Bryer? Its official explanation is that ‘there is a public interest in bringing such a prosecution’. A charity spokesman added: ‘We look closely at whether the quality of the evidence meets the usual tests too. We take our enforcement role seriously.’
But one animal-rights supporter with knowledge of the case believes much of it is a face-saving exercise.
‘The RSPCA was very keen to run this one up the flagpole in the wake of the Wooler report to prove it was still a force to be reckoned with,’ he said. ‘But we’re not confident it will go the distance and if it does, we don’t think it will result in a conviction.
‘Proving identification is incredibly difficult at the best of times. And this isn’t the best evidence. They know that. But they think there is a chance.’
Certainly, as a charity the RSPCA is under pressure to explain its prosecutions policy. And internally it is riven with disagreements between the old guard, who fear donations will dry up if it becomes too political, and hardline activists. Although the charity, whose patron is the Queen, remains one of the wealthiest in the UK, with investment assets of £82million, much of this cash is thought to be tied up in longterm deals.
ONE person involved in animal rescue said: ‘I have been told the past three months have been like a white-knuckle ride in making payments and that the RSPCA has had to go to the bank and agree an overdraft for the first time.’
In a statement, the RSPCA confirmed it had made ‘contingency plans to ensure efficient cash flow’ and had negotiated an overdraft, but insisted: ‘We have not used this facility and do not foresee any reason to use it at this present time.’
For the Cattistock Hunt it was business as usual for the Boxing Day meet. ‘They are quietly confident that Mr Bryer will be acquitted eventually,’ says one local landowner. ‘If the court has any sense, the case will be thrown out. That is the thinking around here.’