How To Enforce Fox Hunting Ban - A View
 

Heard on the radio this AM

Hunter

"So you can ban Fox Hunting but there's no ban on riding horses with your friends or organising rides. And there is no ban on taking your dogs with you when riding.

So what happens if you come across a fox? Your dogs, being dogs, will likely chase it and you will have to go after your dogs...

Is that hunting?"



I can forsee a very tough time ahead for the authorities!

blunkett has already mentioned this and any attempt to "hunt" will lead to prosecution.

Too right, James.


Banning hunting is one thing. Enforcing the ban is another matter entirely and is something that clearly hasn't been thought through.

well the interview with blunkett that was on sky news this morning stated that any breaking of the new law would be enforced by the police the same way as any other crime.

oh the irony (in relation to funding the hunting ban)

"Home Secretary David Blunkett says money currently used to protect hunts from saboteurs will be used."

Oh I bet it will, I'm sure if he has his way the clear up rate for illegal hunts will be better than murder, rape and burglary! Nothing like getting your priorities right. :mad:

So not a lot is gonna happen then ! :)

Unless the horses and hounds happen to be speeding :D

Yup, set some Gatsos up around random fields. :)

Sounds like dogs not being kept under control by their owners. Prosecute the owners for harassing wildlife. If they are found to be doing it again........... custodial sentence!

................. and banned from keeping "pets" for 10 years as they are irresponsible owners!

Its the thought of coppers chasing the hunt across the fields waving at them to stop that gets me. Bit like Morris Dancers!

Les

Don't believe their is a law about stopping pets (dogs in this case) chase wildlife on private land ...... if they tried to say this was *hunting* they would have to prosecute every dog owner whose pet chased a cat .....

Dave

Will this be the start of registration plates on horses? :D If so, I suppose it brings into play a number of animal cruelty issues..

For example, im guessing screwing a registration plate to a horses backside is going to hurt, also will the snobs want a new horse every 6 months avoid looking old meaning the poor old horse is culled to make way for a shiney new "05" plate horse..

Sorry I've gone too far :D

They'll get caught one way or the other. As they're so keen on "traditions", we should put them in stocks as a punishment. Then after a few pints in some country pub, (having doffed my cap to all the regulars and thanked them for their sterling work in managing the countryside), I can go to the village square, get a spade and use it to fling dog-muck at them.
Then I can return to my urban-sprawl. I can see a new form of weekend entertainment for us townies based around this concept. Should be good.

I should just stay in the town if I was you, you'd be safer. no one likes bigots very much.

Les

Nothing that a few platoons of kevlar clad, batton wielding 'gooks' won't be able to sort out.

Easy, shoot anyone who wears a red coat while on a horse ;)

Only the MFH and whipper-ins usually wear red coats :) :p

Ya wouldn't want to ruin the red coats either, they can be wort a few bob!

I probably will. I don't like sadistic, common criminals.

This gets better and better. A piece in the Sunday Times today describes in some detail how landowners will be able to prevent police accessing their land to enforce the hunt ban. They'll be treated in law exactly the same way as trespassers.


What a monumental fcuk up and waste of government time.

And how will they be able to do that? - that sounds like obstructing an officer from carrying out his duties to me which is an arrestable offence is it not?

Amazing how Bliar can force the Parliament Act through on what is a relatively minor matter and on something that doesn't affect the vast majority of the population. Shame we can't sort out the mess we created in Iraq, juvenile crime and car crime (not speed cameras!!). I'm not really pro or anti hunting, just think it's time priorities are sorted!

Don't know matey - I'm not a legal expert but given the passion generated in the debate, I'm sure it's been researched to the nth degree.

Well said. A vote and ban on fox hunting was a necessary sop by Bliar to his "loyal" back benchers.
There will be major civil disobedience after the ban date and it is obvious from what has been said by several senior police officers from various forces that they have no stomach to be involved in enforcement of politically motivated legislation that is clearly divisive.

Bring on the revolution. ;)

I read a quote yesterday from a senior Police officer who said it will be strange for the police officers to be protecting hunt participants on the 17th Feb 2005, and then potentially arresting them for doing the same thing the next day.

As for Police access to land, does it work in the same way as property? They would normally need a search warrant to access someones house (with certain exceptions), so could the same be true of privately owned land?

Great letter from the Independent's web site:


Sir: Those countryfolk who will no longer be able to use their red coats should take heart. Butlins will soon be recruiting for 2005.




http://comment.independent.co.uk/let...p?story=585349

i think that police have the power to enter and search property without a warrant if they have 'reasonable grounds' to suspect a crime is being commited
happy to be proved wrong though
richie