Written by Douglas on 08 April, 2011 : 14:14 This article is from the blog of The League Against Cruel Sports, the charity campaigning against cruel sports.
‘Anyone who has dealt with unruly children or petty criminals will be familiar with the usual litany of excuses that surround an incident the perpetrators are trying to say was nothing to do with them. I wasn’t there, it wasn’t me that did it, it was broken before we got there, or some such concoction; all of them lies.
It never ceases to surprise and to disappoint me the extent to which people accused of hunting and killing for sport resort to telling outright lies. Not only do they frequently tell lies to the police, they also sometimes commit perjury by doing so in court.
It is the psychology of the need to lie that interests me. Clearly the liar is not comfortable with the position they have got themselves into. If they were, they wouldn’t be lying to try and avoid awkward questions about what they have or haven’t done. The lie is their first and often last line of defence when called to account. The truth just does not serve their purpose.
The first lie is usually, “it wasn’t me”. That lie is interesting in itself because it carries with it an implicit admission that the event took place but the accused is saying that it wasn’t them. Time and again hunters deny being present and the police then have to arrange an identity parade at which the monitors or other bystanders have to identify the people they saw on the day in question. On some occasions the accused have even produced witnesses to testify that they were not where the camera and the GPS shows they were at the time in question.
The second lie is that, “it wasn’t me”. This admits that the event happened, but the accused denies that it was him or her that was involved. In that context being involved is usually a rather self interested interpretation that the law doesn’t recognise as being a sufficient excuse. In much the same way as the driver of the get away car at a robbery is seen in law as being one of the robbers, so in law it is with the hunters. If they were out on the day, and were actively participating in the hunt, they were a part of any criminal action that took place.
The third lie about it being broken before we got there. In the case of hunting and shooting crime the lie is couched in the terms of, “it was a pest”, “it had mange”, or even “it was sick and had to be killed”. In almost every case where the lie is produced in defence, there is no evidence brought forward to support it. It is almost as though reciting the lines is enough to prove innocence.
So when we look at a lot of what goes on in the hunting world, what do we see? We see lies and deceit, we see perjury and attempts to pervert the course of justice and we see complicity with criminality. The fact that so many in the hunting world are prepared to lie about what they are doing is quite shocking. The fact that they are often prepared to lie to the police and to magistrates in court is doubly shocking.
At the start of a lot of days hunting Hunt Masters make a statement for the record and for the followers that they be carrying out a mixture of trail hunting and legal ‘exempt’ hunting with dogs. Some of those Masters must be well aware that any such statement is a bare faced lie. Those planning to be involved in any illegal hunting will also know that it is a bare faced lie.
The law on hunting is quite clear in that the hunting is not exempt if it is for the purpose of providing sport and entertainment. Hunting can only be exempt if it takes place in a manner compliant with all the conditions of the exemption. To provide sport is not a condition of any form of exempt hunting under the Act.
So when I look at hunting as a culture I see liars, I don’t see gentlemen and women, I see liars and for the most part petty criminals acting together in a criminal conspiracy to break the law and to cause cruelty to animals for sport. Hunting isn’t a noble tradition it is a sad band of liars and criminals who seek refuge in the crumbling bastion of their countryside bloodsports-based culture.
It can be tempting to take pity on the delinquents in the hunting field but we shouldn’t do so. Very often their parents taught them to hunt and to kill for sport. Even now they are teaching their children as the next generation to hunt, kill and now to lie for sport. This by any standard is truly antisocial behaviour and bad parenting. Society should be adopting a zero tolerance approach to this sort of antisocial behaviour.
With the passage of six hunting seasons since the passing of the Hunting Act the criminal community in the countryside have had enough time to adjust to the changes in the wider world that have made their leisure pursuits a crime. Hunting for sport is a culture steeped in institutionalised and ritualised cruelty and supported by a tissue of lies and false witness. It is time to call a halt to this ritual abuse of people and animals.
When it comes to enforcing the law justice does not just need to be done it needs to be seen to be being done. The hunting community like to dress up their socially aberrant behaviour as a human rights issue when in fact it is precisely the reverse of that. Their behaviour is for the most part all about human wrongs. The lies, the cruelty and the criminal complicity that supports a lot of what goes on in and around hunting is clear evidence of a sickness in their niche rural community.
Clearly not everyone in the rural community is infected with the hunters’ neurosis, but those who are lie and abuse animals and people, for and in connection with their bloodsports. The police and the CPS should be doing their best to protect the majority of the law abiding people who live and work in the countryside from the criminal minority in the bloodsports community.
It is a fundamental mistake to see the hunting issue in terms of foxes, deer, hares and mink. It is in reality all about people who lie, who are habitually cruel and who abuse for sport. If the hunt masters really wanted to hunt within the law they would all join the Masters of Drag Hounds Association and agree to abide by their rules. Until such time as they do make that change, it is better by far that we, the police and the courts see and hold them to account for their lies and their deceit in and out of court.’
