On 25 September, Devon County Hunt Saboteurs reported that a hunt member has been convicted of sexually assaulting a teenager, as well as sending sexual messages to a person who was pretending to be a child. The sabs wrote:
“Andrew Webber, who owns Bartridge Farm in Umberleigh, regularly hosts and supports the Torrington Farmers Hunt and the Cheldon Buckhounds. We have sabbed at his farm several times.
Webber has been convicted of sexually assaulting a 16-year-old child and sending sexual messages to a decoy pretending to be a 13-year-old girl.”
“Webber asked the girl for sexual photos but she called him a paedophile.”
Getting away with it
“This will very likely to be the only time he appears before criminal court. He’ll continue living an entirely law-abiding life, having done so for 53 years.”
Quite how Lewin knows that Webber has been law-abiding prior to these cases is a mystery.
Devon County Sabs made the point:
“Sexual violence, just like animal abuse, is hugely underreported to the police and consequently goes unpunished the vast majority of the time. Just because someone has not previously been convicted of a similar crime doesn’t mean that this person only at the age of 53 started to become a paedophile. Just as it would be ridiculous to conclude that a person convicted of illegal hunting only ever broke the Hunting Act once in their life!”
Webber must sign the Sex Offender Register for the next 10 years. He was also issued with a Sexual Harm Prevention Order. This order can be imposed by the court in order to protect the public by restricting a person’s behaviour.
Hunters and rape culture
The sabs stated:
“Are we surprised that those who enjoy bloodsports are also abusive towards women and children? Sadly not in the slightest. We see these cases pop up in the news regularly.”
”This has been the most difficult 10 months of my life. Not only have I been violated in the most horrendous way, I have suffered emotional trauma as a result of this.”
In 2017, 51-year-old Bryn Chittenden, terrierman of the East Essex Foxhounds and the Essex Farmers and Union Foxhounds, was jailed after having sex with a vulnerable 14 year old. He was given a sentence of six years and three months for sexual activity with a child, and then another six months for making indecent images and movies of children.
In 2019, Grove and Rufford hunt member Paul Piddington was imprisoned for 11 years and six months after he was found guilty of three counts of sexual assault; one count of rape; one count of indecent assault and one count of exposure. He terrorised four women over a 12-year period.
“We have revealed a traditional society where women (and it is mostly women) are subjugated, abused and controlled, not just by an individual abuser, but de facto by very the communities in which they live, too often left unsupported and unprotected. This is not at all unique to rural areas, but it is very significant, and change is slow.”
Sadistic
Long-term activists feel rape culture is embedded in the world of hunting. Take, for example, one photo published by the Hunt Saboteurs Association, which shows hunt men standing around a banner they have made. The sign says, “If the fox didn’t enjoy it he wouldn’t join in.”