A security guard working for the notorious Wynnstay Hunt pleaded guilty in court on 15 July. He was charged after racially abusing a hunt saboteur, which is a hate crime.
Anthony Williams was one of the Wynnstay’s hired thugs on 6 January 2024. Cheshire Hunt Saboteurs reported that Williams acted like the Incredible Hulk. He jumped out his car, shouting “f*ck off” repeatedly at sabs. He then said to one sab, “you do not belong in this country.”
After he pleaded guilty, Cheshire Hunt Saboteurs wrote:
“It’s not the first time that this hunt and it’s security guys have said racist sentences against us. This time as witnesses there were our sab, and also a police officer who was present when the racist abuse occurred. Everything was in the police officer’s camera footage.”
Williams was fined £400, plus ordered to pay £200 for court expenses and another £150 for extra costs.
Cheshire Borderland Monitors, who are regularly on the ground keeping an eye on the Wynnstay Hunt, told Protect the Wild:
“Williams is paid to get in sabs and monitor’s way and stop us entering fields where hunting is happening.”
Getting a racist reputation
It is just one year since another racist man – also associated with the Wynnstay Hunt – found himself in court. In February 2023, Ian Jones harassed Cheshire Borderland Monitors member Lesley.
“The Fourth Reich according to Lesley. You will not hunt, you will not live, we will gas you all.”
After that incident, Lesley told Protect the Wild:
“He was obstructing me, trying to goad me into saying something on his little necklace camera that he wears. He accused me of being a Hitler and a fascist. He’s just an irritation, a broken soul like the rest of them.”
Jones was then charged by police of using “threatening or abusive words or behaviour that would cause harassment, alarm or distress to his victim”. He pleaded guilty to the charge in June 2023. The judge handed Jones an 18-month conditional discharge.
Court, court, court
It isn’t just the Wynnstay’s supporters and hired thugs who have found themselves in court recently. Its staff are also regulars in the dock.
In December 2023, ex-huntsman Chris Woodward (pictured above) was found guilty under Section 1 of the Hunting Act after his hounds chased a fox. Months earlier, in August 2023, Woodward pleaded guilty to interfering with a badger sett near Malpas, north Wales. He was blocking the sett, along with whipper-in Charlie Young, so that foxes couldn’t run into them to escape being hunted. And in July 2023, Woodward pleaded guilty to causing intentional harassment, alarm or distress, an offence under the Public Order Act. The hunter rode his horse at a Cheshire Monitors volunteer during a fox hunting meet in January 2023.
Cheshire Monitors has previously told Protect The Wild that the Wynnstay is “haemorrhaging support and land to hunt on.” This latest guilty verdict, convicting a racist man connected with the hunt, should ensure that the Wynnstay loses even more support as it prepares for the 2024/25 season.
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