On 15 March 2023, South Dorset Hunt supporter Stewart Masters was found guilty after running down a hunt saboteur from Weymouth Animal Rights (WAR).
WAR said:
“On 12th February 2022, three of our group were waiting on a pick up when one of them was deliberately run into by a South Dorset Hunt supporter, Stewart Masters in his vehicle. Luckily, they weren’t seriously injured!”
Masters was subsequently charged, and was convicted of careless driving, failing to stop after an accident and failing to report an accident.
Deliberate
The court heard witness statements from people who were at the scene, who told the judge that Masters had deliberately hit the WAR saboteur with his vehicle. WAR told Protect The Wild:
“There was no footage, only witness statements. It was his word against ours, and it came down to credibility. He lied through his teeth in court. We knew the truth.”
WAR continued:
“We think he should have been charged with dangerous driving, not careless driving: it could have been far more serious. But justice has been served.”
We asked WAR what Masters’ role is within the South Dorset Hunt. They said:
“He is their hunt servant. He opens gates, loads the hounds and horses, etc. But he is renowned for assaulting sabs. A number of years ago there was a private prosecution against him after he assaulted a sab, and he settled out of court.”
South Dorset thugs
South Dorset Hunt supporters repeatedly targeted hunt sabs and monitors in 2022 and 2023. Incidents in the past three months alone include:
- 20 December 2022: a 77-year-old WAR monitor was hospitalised after two masked-up men beat him round the head with a metal bar and left him for dead. The man had his extensive lacerations stitched and glued, and had severe bruising on his face, eyes, arms and hands.
- 26 December 2022: North Dorset Hunt Sabs and WAR woke up to find the tyres on their vehicles slashed. On the same day, a couple, unrelated to either group, had their tyres slashed as they sat in their vehicle.
- 12 January 2023: A North Dorset Sabs monitor in his seventies was badly bruised after South Dorset thugs fired metal at him from a catapult.
- 12 January 2023: South Dorset Hunt supporters threw two murdered foxes into a WAR saboteur’s garden.
On top of all this, the South Dorset Hunt knowingly employs violent terriermen who have convictions. For example, Lewis Longstaffe has been convicted of a string of wildlife crimes, including using a catapult to steal pheasants from a pen. He was also found guilty of burglary at a farm in Dorset. Longstaffe has a Criminal Behaviour Order, and two conditions are that he must not be on private land without written permission by the owner, nor must he be in possession of dogs on private land. And yet he is still employed as terrierman for the hunt. On top of this, he has also previously found himself in court for using threatening words or behaviour likely to cause harassment, alarm or distress against hunt monitors. Another South Dorset Hunt terrierman, Edward Doggrell, pleaded guilty to affray following a fight outside a Wetherspoons pub in 2019.
Notorious hunt staff
Hunt supporters stepped up their violence against monitors and sabs after South Dorset master-huntsman, Mark Pearson, was found guilty of illegal hunting in October 2022. Wildlife monitors’ evidence was crucial in ensuring that conviction after they filmed Dorset Hunt’s hounds killing two foxes on 13 November 2021. However, a judge later overturned Pearson’s conviction, saying that the CPS hadn’t sufficiently proved that the pack was hunting with intent to kill.
Pearson will soon return to court again, this time for his role in alleged illegal hunting with his old Portman Hunt. He will face trial along with Tom Lyle and Marcus Boundy, accused of hunting a wild animal with dogs.
Support those on the ground
For as long as Pearson and his cronies continue to face prosecution, it’s unlikely that South Dorset Hunt supporters are going to back down. It is, therefore, essential that we give our support to those on ground who put their lives on the line to monitor this violent hunt.
You can donate to Weymouth Animal Rights here.
Featured image via Weymouth Animal Rights
