In this mid-September fox hunting news update we report on the conviction of a Norwich based terrierman for not providing medical care to a Patterdale terrier under his care. In addition:
-
On 26 February hunt monitor Chantelle Leach was assaulted by a hunt supporter. We reported at the time that Essex Police treated her case with a severe lack of care, with one cop ending a call by saying “I have crimes to deal with”. Now, the officer who dealt with her has been given a written warning for using misogynistic language in another case.
-
The Royal Artillery Hunt was chucked off Salisbury Plain last year after the Ministry of Defence announced that it would not approve new licenses for hunting on its land. We take a look at the landowners who have been hosting the hunt since then.
Norwich terrierman convicted of causing unnecessary suffering to a Patterdale terrier
Daniel Eldridge has been convicted of animal cruelty offences by Norwich Magistrates Court, after a case was brought against him by the RSPCA. The charges date back to 2021 and 2023 at Marshland St James, near Wisbech.
Eldridge pleaded guilty to causing unnecessary suffering to Spud, a Patterdale terrier, when he failed to seek medical care for the dog after he sustained facial injuries. Spud had deliberately been sent underground to fight with badgers.
The prosecutor in the case told the court that the seriousness of Spud’s injuries should have been “obvious to any reasonable owner”.
Eldridge initially plead not guilty, but in the end admitted to the charge of causing unnecessary suffering, changing his plea to guilty on the day of the trial. Alongside failing to properly tend to Spud’s injuries, Eldridge admitted to illegal tail docking too.
Not an isolated incident
This is by no means the first time that a terrierman has been convicted of failing to properly treat a dog’s injuries.
To give just one example, Robert and Jack Mills were convicted of causing unnecessary suffering to an animal at Folkestone Magistrates Court in December 2023 after they tried to tend to their dog’s wounds with superglue. According to KentOnline, The men had glued up their terrier Fudge’s lip after he was maimed while fox hunting. The dog was also found to be missing a number of front teeth. Another dog, a lurcher called Rose, was discovered with an oozing nail bed, scars across her face, and a large part of her tongue missing.
Protect the Wild has spoken to an anonymous source who said that Eldridge’s conviction is linked to the case of Sam Staniland, who was given a suspended 26 month prison sentence in Norwich Crown Court on 10 April this year after himself pleading guilty to multiple charges of animal cruelty. Ex-Essex & Suffolk huntsman (ESH) Staniland’s case was, like Eldridge’s, brought by the RSPCA.
Staniland pleaded guilty to several charges of allowing Patterdale terriers, foxhounds and lurcher dogs to fight badgers and foxes. Five dogs were confiscated and rehomed during the proceedings.
At Protect the Wild, we think that hunting and so-called terrier work needs to be consigned to the trashcan of history sooner rather than later.
Terrierwork makes cruel injuries inevitable
Terriers are sent into fox earths by terriermen to flush them out, so that the hunt can kill them. Shockingly, terrier work isn’t illegal under the Hunting Act, although allowing dogs to fight with wild animals is. Protect the Wild’s Charlie Moores wrote:
“It isn’t hard to imagine the cruelty of putting terriers below ground to go after foxes (or other wild mammals). The terrier is trained to display aggression towards the fox, while the fox [or, in this case, badger] ”is likely to return that aggression in self-defence. Although the law states that terriers aren’t to attack or injure the fox, because they are underground and beyond the direct control of terriermen, there’s no guarantee the two won’t fight. At that point, with terrier and fox attacking each other, it’s little more than literal underground dog fighting. Both fox and terrier can end up with horrific injuries as a result of their confrontation.”
Possessing badger remains
Eldridge was also charged with illegally possessing the remains of a dead badger and with causing suffering to another Patterdale named Sam.
The RSPCA eventually offered no evidence to these additional charges after Eldridge’s defence team offered a ‘Basis of Plea’ (a kind of plea bargain). The court sentenced him to 120 hours of unpaid work and a 12 month conditional discharge. He was also ordered to pay £1000 court costs and is not allowed to keep dogs for the next two years. Earlier in the proceedings he had voluntarily surrendered nine dogs that were under his care.
Protect the Wild’s Rob Pownall says that Eldridge’s case highlights the wider issues of cruelty linked to terrierwork:
“
At Protect the Wild, we want to end the gruesome world of terrierwork. Sign our ‘End Terrier Work petition and read Charlie Moores’ article on ‘Terrierwork, terriermen and the grotesque world of fox hunting’.
Picture of Spud via RSPCA
Cop accused of misogyny against wildlife defender given written warning for using inappropriate language
Back in February, hunt monitor Chantelle Leach was assaulted by hunt supporter Tom Greig. Essex Police initially refused to take any action and Protect the Wild launched an e-petition calling for them to take the case seriously.
Chantelle’s complaint was eventually handed over to the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), but Chantelle felt she was treated inappropriately by PC Oliver Stovell, and that his actions felt like they had “misogynistic undertones”. Now, Stovell has received an official reprimand related to another case for – amongst other things – using inappropriate, insulting, and misogynistic language about a colleague.
On 26 February, Essex & Suffolk Hunt (ESH) supporter Tom Greig was filmed smashing hunt monitor Chantelle Leach’s phone and shoving her during the ESH’s meet in Little Bentley on 26 February. The assault escalated off-camera. Chantelle told Protect the Wild’s Rob Pownall:
“From nowhere, someone grabbed my phone from that my hand and flung it. And then he starts grabbing me. He starts throwing me around. Unfortunately, this is when the lady filming stops filming, and she didn’t get [footage] of my assault. So it’s really hard for people to understand what actually happened to me. You see one of the times he smashed my phone, but after that, he kept hold of my phone and he was grabbing me here [gestures to her collar area].
I remember my forearms hurting afterwards. I still have shoulder pains. I still have lower back pain. So he was shaking me down quite a bit.”
“This is how women are treated when they’re attacked”
When Chantelle went to the police, their response was to treat her like the criminal, not Greig. Stovell ended one phone call with Chantelle by saying “I’ve got crimes to deal with”.
Essex Police initially wanted to deal with Greig by offering him a caution and an anger management course. However, Chantelle didn’t think that a caution was enough. She told Protect the Wild:
“It’s just going to give police a bigger task in the future, because this guy is just going to keep reoffending. So I just don’t want them to silence me or any other women, because, you know, there’s an there’s a national emergency with violence against women at the moment, and then this is how women are treated when they’re attacked, when they’re assaulted.”
Chantelle told us that Stovell “didn’t seem to care at all” about what she’d been through. She said that he repeatedly got her name wrong and even tried to get her to sign a version of her statement that he had heavily amended. Stovell refused to interview Chantelle and, after interviewing Greig, claimed that he had shown remorse and this was reason enough not to hand the matter over to the CPS.
Chantelle said that the way Stovell treated her was “unprofessional” and had “misogynistic undertones”. She has since made a complaint to Essex Police about his behaviour.
Now, Stovell has received a final written warning in regard to another matter after he used insulting and abusive language about a detainee who had self-harmed. Stovell also watched football on his phone while on duty, and used insulting, inappropriate and misogynistic language about a colleague.
The last communication that Chantelle had from Essex Police was that – after pressure from Protect the Wild and Chantelle’s police complaint – the case has finally been handed over to the Crown Prosecution Service. She hasn’t heard anything from the police or CPS since July.
Chantelle’s case highlights what wildlife defenders are up against when they try to get justice from a police force that, as Chantelle says, “doesn’t care at all”. The fact that Stovell has now been handed a final written warning for inappropriate and misogynistic behaviour in another matter underlines the fact that the matter has so far been treated with casual disregard by Stovell and Essex Police.
- Read Protect the Wild’s original article on the assault by Greig and watch our video interview with Chantelle.
- Chantelle was acting as a hunt monitor for Suffolk Action for Wildlife. Consider donating to the monitors here. Any amount will be gratefully appreciated.
- Check out our Protectors of the Wild page on ‘Assaults and the Law’.
- If you’ve been affected by violence from the hunt when out sabbing it can be useful to get mental health support. Protect the Wild is in touch with a trained counsellor who can provide sessions to sabs, funded by Protect the Wild. Click here to find out more.
What are the Royal Artillery Hunt up to now that they’ve been chucked off Salisbury Plain?
Last year the Ministry of Defence announced that it would not approve new licenses for hunting on its land, following a long-running campaign by hunt sabs and Protect the Wild. As a result, the Royal Artillery Hunt (RAH) lost their access to Salisbury Plain, which had been their main hunting ground. So where did the RAH go next?
The RAH are a notorious hunt, with a long record of both illegal fox hunting and violence against the public. Huntsman Charles Carter, has been served with a Community Resolution Order (CRO) after assaulting a female hunt sab with a whip. Carter had previously been forced to resign from his role as a Tory councillor after making sexually inapropriate remarks to another female sab.
Hunt monitors and saboteurs have repeatedly shown Carter and the Royal Artillery Hunt have acted in contravention of the Hunting Act too. On 24 December 2021, sabs found the remains of a recently killed fox in the same spot where Carter and the pack of hounds had been positioned just moments earlier. And three days later, on 27 December, sabs captured footage of hounds killing a fox on MOD land. They were also caught on camera blatantly hunting on 30 October 2021.
In March 2023 Protect the Wild reported that Carter and RAH whipper-in Guy Loader were both issued official warnings by the Ministry of Defence (MOD) Police. The men violated a bye-law when they didn’t keep their hounds under control while hunting on 22 October 2022. That time, Salisbury Plain Monitors filmed Carter taking no action as the RAH hounds chased deer across a field.
So where are the RAH hunting now?
Salisbury Plain Monitors have been keeping the RAH under close tabs, and this month the group reported that the hunt had met up on land owned by Lacock Dairy in Reybridge, Wiltshire – a regular meet point for hunts.
The hunt has also reportedly met on land owned by Rew Farm Holiday Accommodation in Wiltshire. Rew Farm advertises itself as animal lovers but, according to Protect the Wild’s Blood Business database:
“We’d be hard-pushed to accept the term ‘animal lover’ applying to a beef farm as it is, but definitely not from somewhere willing to host on multiple occasions the notorious Royal Artillery Hunt (RAH). Having been given their marching orders from terrorising wildlife on Salisbury Plain it is disappointing that anyone would host this hunt – but as Salisbury Plain Hunt Sabs reported in September 2025, the unlovable RAH were back at Rew Farm almost a year since they were reported there in November 2024, when Rew Farm allowed the RAH to meet and hunt on their land from 12 noon to 3.30.”
Stokes Marsh Farm in Coulston, Wiltshire, boasts that it follows the “highest ethical standards”. Owned by AT and TF Johnson, the farm’s moral code didn’t stop them from hosting a cubbing meet by the RAH last year. Salisbury Plain Monitors wrote in September 2024:
“The Royal Artillery hunt were blatantly cubbing at 7.30 am behind electric gates, with no access, in this fortified farm. This time, we dread to think what happened to our wildlife this morning and go to bed with heavy hearts. Shame on you, Stoke Marsh Farm and all your customers.”
Along with these businesses, the RAH has been relying on land provided by friendly landowners linked to the Avon Vale and Tedworth Hunts.
It’s landowners like these that enable the likes of the RAH to continue to kill wildlife, even though big public landowners like the MOD have stopped issuing them with licenses.
If these businesses truly cared about animals and ethics they would have nothing to do with the Royal Artillery hunt.
-
If you have info about more businesses supporting the RAH or other hunts you can tip us off here.
-
Check out our Blood Business entry on Jumblebee, the online fundraising site that has been providing a platform for the Royal Artillery hunt to raise money through online auctions. You can write to them here and ask them not to provide a platform for the RAH and other hunts.
-
Salisbury Plain Hunt Sabs have been at the forefront of the campaign against the Royal Artillery Hunt for years. You can support their work on Paypal.