Bravo2zero_sps

Is a farmer permitted to shoot a legally owned shotgun in a field he owns with a public footpath through it?

I suspect not but I thought i'd ask.

So far this week my local farmer who obviously thinks the law does not apply to him, his family or his many scummy Eastern European workers has given me plenty of ammo for kicking up ****. Oh yeah and I wonder if those workers pay tax and the farmer their NI contributions?!

Firstly his son (I would assume) walking by me with his loaded shotgun, although barrel broken, and then shooting rabbits/pheasants in the field i've just walked my dog through along the public footpath.

Then another day his daughter (again assuming) jumped her horse out of one of the fields onto the footpath right behind me. It's not a bridlepath so shouldn't be riding her horse along a narrow public footpath back to the farm. Plus where the 'jump' in the fence is it's by a high hedge so if i'd been a few seconds later I would have been walking out from behind the hedge and been knocked flat by her jumping her horse as wouldn't have seen her and she wouldn't have seen me.

Then today they are out fox hunting, again across the footpath without a care for any public in their way. That needs reporting to the local hunt saboteurs/animal rights lot. Unfortunately I missed them, only heard them, as it was people I walk my dog with occasionally who had the misfortune of nearly being flattened by the hunt this morning. It's not even as though the farmer has any livestock to legitimately claim the foxes are killing his animals, he's a fruit farmer so I guess the foxes must have a penchant for apples and strawberries

hutton_d

Is it a footpath or just a right of access/way? I'd go and talk to local plod in a hypothetical way ..

Dave

Bravo2zero_sps

Dave i'm considering doing just that but wanted to get my facts straight first. It's a public footpath that runs for miles and miles. I'm also wondering if they are hunting outside of the season. Isn't it supposed to start November?

Bravo2zero_sps

Well decided to go for a drive down the lanes in my 4x4 to see over the hedges and low and behold I came a cross a pack of unsupervised blood hounds charging along a single lane road which is a steep hill and blind bends on it. No supervision of the dogs at all and I could easily of hit them/flattened them (was tempting as would have involved the police then). They then turned left onto the public footpath I walk my dog on where I saw a bloke in his late 60s on a motocross bike. I shouted out to him are these your dogs and he reluctantly looked at me and replies yeah maybe. I then shouted I didn't think it was legal to hunt along public footpaths and he just turned away.

Had I been walking my dog at that time i'd have been extremely unhappy to have that lot charging at me. Even worse is the number of elderly who walk their dogs along there. These dogs were barking and growling as in a state of excited aggressiveness. It's ******* bang out of order.

Bravo2zero_sps

You must be one of those fox hunting cvnts The pheasants aren't farmed, they are a wild bird. If they are farmed he does a bad job of the couple that exist

You've admitted they are breaking the law regarding the horse riding on a public footpath and then say I don't understand the law.

They are only permitted to discharge a firearm a certain distance away from the public footpath so they can not just go shooting where ever they please.

Bravo2zero_sps

It's not the individual bits on their own but the overall attitude of i can do what ever the hell I want attitude and stuff the public. The dogs on the road this morning was just down right dangerous.

Having talked about it this morning with others apparently this farm has been causing loads of trouble recently.

Oh and the funny bit i forgot to mention about the bloke shooting, whilst he was stalking about in the trees next to me his mobile phone went off at full volume scaring off anything in the vicinity anyway, it even made him jump - what a tool

Bravo2zero_sps

I know just the thing

Bravo2zero_sps

firstly I never let my dog off the lead so a mute point there

As for the pheasant's like I say they are a wild bird around here, most definitely not farmed with any game keeper etc. They are few and far between and the comment about shooting pheasants was a case of bumpkin numpty seemingly to be out shooting anything that happened to be moving in the field, mainly rabbits.

It's pure fruit farming here and the last time I looked, foxes and pheasants etc did not pose a threat to apples on a tree

I disagree on your point about the footpath. It is a public footpath therefore the public are not to be put at risk by the farmer running a pack of hounds at them or several horses galloping down a non bridleway. You do know that's why bridleways exist don't you? Because it is illegal to ride a horse on a public footpath just the same as it would be if you were to ride a motorcycle along one, which old git bumpkin also seems to think is OK.

And for clarity I do maintain those who participate in a cruel and barbaric act as fox hunting are cvnts, no offense meant of course

Bravo2zero_sps

good grief Les read it again. I'm saying that the elderly who walk their dogs along there would not be able to cope well with a pack of maurauding blood hounds coming at them and their little King Charles Spaniel, for example.

Bravo2zero_sps

No its not open fields and that's the problem. The farmer has made quite a point of making the footpaths very narrow with barbed wire fences, I don't mean just a little but rows and rows of the stuff to make up his fences. So those walking their dogs along the path, or those who take their little kids for a walk down there have no where to get out of the way when horses or packs of dogs are coming at them.

Bravo2zero_sps

Richie, those who hunt with dogs and who openly flout the law like the one i'm talking about.

Shooting them I have no issue with when done as part of pest control.

hutton_d

Then check this out because, as far as I've read, land owners are perfectly entitled to erect fences along a footpath as long as a) they're a certain width (2m I believe) and b) barbed wire is on the side away from the path. I'm sure Google in this respect will bring things up. If not, your local council.

Dave

Bravo2zero_sps

Cheers Dave, yep there are definitely sections less than 2.1m The paths to give an idea have a very high (several metres) of hedgerow or trees/bushes on one side and the other side is normally barbed wire stopping people from being anywhere near his orchard trees. Some sections have barbed wire on both sides of the path so if a little kid (or anyone for that matter) slips in the mud they are going to get cut up.

The open field I referred to where the shooting was taking place is a small non farmed field where the footpath runs through it along the hedgerow. This is the only section not fenced off and the horses aren't taken in this field either as it's the opposite direction to where they go hunting.

belliott hunting drag style isn't off issue to me and I wasn't referring to that hunting. I am purely referring to those who still hunt with dogs and kill the fox with dogs. Anyway I thought you could still track the fox with dogs but had to dispatch the fox with a gun to be within the law? i.e. the bit that has been made illegal is the tearing apart of the fox by the hounds once caught?