Petition: Monmouthshire No Boxing Day Parade

Monmouthshire County Council – No Monmouthshire Hunt Boxing Day Parade

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Letter

Dear Councillors

We are writing to you in advance of the Monmouthshire Hunt meet on Boxing Day. The purpose of this letter is to make you aware of the legal risks associated with such an activity and to remind you of your legal obligations.

Background

Abergavenny Council Car Park is being used by an event organiser but is not closed.

Public safety issues

1. Risks to Public Safety

Horses
An equine event is always high-risk. Horses are large animals, with the ability to inflict significant injury on a person. Additionally, many horses are easily spooked in large crowds. The temperament of each horse at the meet is unknown. Accompanying the hunt will be a number of other riders, some of whom will be completely unknown to the hunt. The competence of these riders is also unknown. Some of these riders will be children. Taking a large number of horses, with unknown temperaments, and a number of riders with unknown skills into a place where the public are congregating – many with children and dogs – is a significant risk.

Potential injuries include:
• Horse stepping on a member of the public’s foot.
• Horse backing into, or moving sideways, into a person.
• A horse falling on to a person (this happened at a Boxing Day meet in Cornwall).
• A horse kicking a person.
• A horse biting a person.
• A rider falling from a horse, and injuring a member of the public.

Horses will also leave dung on the surface of the car park. In December, the surface is likely to be wet and slippery anyway. The addition of horse dung will increase the risk of slips.

The meeting is attended by people of all ages. Elderly people and children are particularly at risk from injuries by horses. Many bring their own dogs. These dogs might not be used to horses and might behave unsafely.

A pet dog was recently savaged by a Hunt pack in a public place.
(https://hadleigh.nub.news/news/local-news/dog-seriously-injured-after-being-attacked-by-hunt-hounds-in-layham-196739)

Horses are animals, and as such, are unpredictable.

Hounds

During the meet, the hounds are corralled behind barriers. However, to arrive at the corral, the hounds pass through the crowds, running alongside the mounted hunt. While the barriers do contain the hounds, they can easily push their faces through and make physical contact with people, particularly children. This is unsanitary. Potential injuries include:

• Hound knocks over a person.
• A member of the public pets a hound and the hound passes a disease to the person (for details of diseases, see annex 1)
• Hound fouls in public area and a person slips in it.
• A child plays near hound fouling and picks up a disease – this applies to urine and faeces

Vehicles

On Boxing Day,  the Brewery Yard car park remains open to all members of the public. However, the Monmouthshire Hunt is allowed to take overweight vehicles containing horses & hounds into the car park.

The car park is still open to ALL members of the public who may not be aware that animals are likely to be roaming free in the area.

Potential injuries include:
• Car colliding with and injuring a person.
• Car colliding with a horse, and injuring the rider.
• Car colliding with hound.

Children are particularly at risk.

This car park entrance & exits . There is no way of segregating the access and egress, and therefore no way of separating the hunt from vehicles using the car park.

2. Monmouthshire Hunt’s Risk Assessment

The Hunt’s risk assessment states:
a/ “ONLY USING ROADS THAT ARE CLOSED TO VEHICLES CARE TAKEN IN BREWERY YARD CARPARK WITH OTHER USERS”

It further goes on to state:
STEWARDS TO BE VIGILANT AND KEEP MARKET ST SOUTH PAVEMENT CLEAR AND IN BREWERY YARD CARPARK
This statement does not explain how they can possibly protect the public who could be using the ‘live’ car-park.  Also, the stewards have no legal right to prevent or direct access both in the car park and highway.  The TRO for the area is not ‘owned’ by the MH for any assembly it is for excluding vehicles only.
Any attempt to prevent parking in certain areas of the car park or access to any street could be legally challenged.
b/ The risk assessment fails to consider 
i/ public &vehicles legally using the car park,
ii/unleashed hounds, 
iii/ danger to the public 
iv/ bio-security, children, domestic animals, slips, trips and falls and other risks.
v/ The Council has a responsibility under The Occupiers Liability Act 1957 to all people using this area not just supporters of an event.

3. Council Responsibility OLA 1957 –
Car Parks do not form part of the Highway so instead of the Highways Act the Council has a “common duty of care” and a duty under the Occupiers Liability Act 1957. The recent history of this kind of claim was very much affected by the decision in Goodes v East Sussex that treated snow and ice as a transient defect allowing Authorities to repudiate claims, as there was no liability under the Highways Act. Although this decision related to the Highway it became a generally accepted defence for most type of claims.

However, The new ‘Duty of Care’ for Highway Authorities introduced in section 111of the Railway and Transport Safety Act 2003 brought to an end the ‘Goodes’ defence giving Council’s the responsibility to ensure ‘so far as is reasonably practicable’ that safe passage along a highway is not endangered by snow or ice.

I would like you to consider that 
    • Monmouthshire County Council are aware that an event is being staged 
    • The event is advertised & the organiser advises the participants to use the car park
    • The Brewery Yard Car Park remains open despite the risks
    • The Risk Assessment states the intention to use Council Property
    • Overweight vehicles will be using the car park
    • Stewards have no legal right to direct traffic within the car park
    • Stewards have no right within the TRO area to stop any individual access
    • The organiser's Public Liability Insurance could be invalid in a live car park.

Every occupier’s duty of care is higher in the case of children who might be attending an event such as the sporting event held on Boxing Day.

S.2 (3) of the 1957 act provides that the occupier must be prepared for children to be less careful than adults. Quite ordinary incidents such as slippery paths, uneven surfaces, water in any form, free-running animals, and horses can all create dangers for children who are too young either to appreciate or cope with the problems, should they arise.

There is a particular duty of care imposed by Parliament which is also relevant to the Boxing Day event. A person having responsibility for animals is liable for ANY damage which occurs if the animals escape, either onto other land, or the public highway (Animals Act 1971)

I think this emphasises the need for care, precaution and fencing. At the Boxing Day event, the animals were not enclosed or fenced in and allowed to freely mix with members of the public.

As mentioned earlier, a car park operator has a duty of care to all users.

I would like you to consider that the car-park is open, vehicles can & will legitimately access that area, whilst the car-park is open. The mixture of moving vehicles, people, children, horses and hounds all uncontrolled and running free. Any damage to vehicles or people has now been highlighted to MCC.

4. Health and Safety at Work Act 1974
The Car Park is a public place, meaning that anyone can access the area.
However, if the hunt also uses the space, the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 (HSWA) applies. This is because the hunt is a business.

The HSWA covers not only the business and its staff, but EVERYONE affected by their activities. Failure to observe the HSWA is a criminal offence.

When the hunt arrives, the car park becomes a “shared premises” with the public – and under section 3 
(1) (b) HSWA, the employer shall make a suitable and sufficient assessment of – ‘the risks to the health and safety of persons not in his employment arising out or in connection with the conduct by him or his undertaking’.
Therefore, in addition to the duty of care under the Occupiers Liability Act 1957, BOTH the council and the hunt have a duty to make a ‘suitable and sufficient assessment’ under this act.

The Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999 (MHSW regulations) create further 
requirements including
• (a) The requirement to assess risks to members of the public arising out of or in connection with the conduct of the organisation (ie a requirement to do risk assessments)
• (b) The requirement to make and give effect to appropriate measures for the effective planning,  control, monitoring and review of preventative and protective measures.
• (c) The requirement to appoint at least one competent person to undertake the necessary  health and safety measures.

The Council, contractors or hunt may have workers who will be in the car park – so they have a duty to co-operate.
Failure to consider the safety of the public is a criminal act.

5/Dangerous Dogs Act 1991

On December 10th 2021, John Sampson from the Western Hunt in Cornwall, was convicted of allowing dogs to be “dangerously out of control”. The hounds killed Mini, a pet cat, on March 8th 2021.

Brewery Yard car park is accessible to the public at all times, and to domestic animals.

The legislation also makes it an offence if a person is worried or made afraid by the dogs. Around 30 hounds attend the meet, arriving unleashed and free to roam, until they are corralled. Thirty unleashed dogs are highly likely to worry the public. The County Council is responsible for keeping the public safe on land it owns

6/ Actions for Consideration:
• The Council must satisfy itself that it has not, by agreeing to allow the hunt to use the car park, knowingly put the public at risk. Handing this responsibility over to the organisers is not sufficient.
• The Council must satisfy itself that all the relevant legislation is being observed, by the hunt and by the council. If they do not, they will be held liable for any breaches of the law that are within its control.
• The Council must satisfy itself that this event, run by a private members subscription-only club, is “for the benefit of the community”. The benefits for the community must be specified and real.
• The Council must satisfy itself that if a person is injured in any way, the hunt’s insurance will pay. Standard hunt insurance does not cover injury to persons.
• The Council must satisfy itself that if a person is injured, and it is later shown because the PPC did not heed the warnings in this submission, they have sufficient resources to cover any compensation claims.
• The Council must satisfy itself that any costs incurred by the Council are justifiable – or alternatively, recover their costs from the hunt.
• The Council must satisfy itself that it is prudent to allow a controversial group to gather, advertise, collect money and celebrate their activities on Council-owned land.
• The Council must take full responsibility for the safety of everyone who uses the car park during the Boxing Day Meet.

The Council should be very cautious that by allowing this event to begin on your land that you do not become associated with illegal activity which might follow, such as: offences under the Hunting Act, Protection of Badgers Act, Animal Welfare Act, Public Order Act.

You need to assess the probability that it could happen and act on the basis of the precautionary principle. That is to say, if there is even a small likelihood of criminal offences taking place then consent should be withheld. 
They should only proceed if you are satisfied (through due diligence) that there is no likelihood or very little likelihood of criminal activity.

Annex 1
Bio-security
It is important to note that hunt dogs are generally fed a raw meat diet from fallen stock. The hunts provide a ‘flesh run’ to collect fallen stock from farms. This provides food for the dogs and means farmers have a cheaper solution for the removal of dead animals.

Raw meat diets can be contaminated with bacteria, including
• Salmonella,
• E coli,
• Listeria,
• Clostridium,
• Campylobacter.

Animals eating raw meat diets are more likely to shed a variety of potentially disease- causing bacteria (Joffe et al, 2002; Finley et al, 2007). Of even greater concern is the issue of antibiotic resistance. A study found that 21% of all raw meat diets sampled were contaminated with salmonella and that these bacteria showed resistance to 75% of the antibiotics tested. Raw meat feeding has been linked to higher rates of shedding highly drug resistant E. coli.

As well as the bacteria risk, there is the risk of parasites – raw feeding can transmit parasites to pets. The parasites include
• tapeworms (Echinococcus granulosus and Taenia species)
• various cyst forming Protozoa.
• Neospora (known to cause abortion in sheep).

These parasites can cause disease not only in our pets, but also in people and livestock.

Recently, ITV ran a disturbing national exposé of this very issue.
(https://www.itv.com/news/2022-02-02/secret-footage-exposes-shocking-scenes-of-dead-animal/disposal)

Hidden cameras at five sites in England and Wales revealed hazardous waste exposed at all of them, satellite image analysis suggests there could be dozens more.

The risks are heightened for hounds routinely fed raw flesh and offal from fallen stock, and a number of studies have shown that this is associated with high worm burdens in hounds. A wide range of pathogens have also been recorded in British hounds, including notifiable diseases. There are similar problems with maintaining and spreading parasites.(Harris S. & Dorning J. (2017). Hunting with hounds and the spread of disease).

If up to thirty dogs pass through at the same time, it is likely that at least one of them will stop to urinate or defecate. Their excrement may well contain pathogens dangerous to the public - in particular to children whose immune systems are immature. Even if a child does not touch the excrement, a domestic dog is highly likely to investigate a hunt dog’s leavings, and then interact physically with their own family shortly afterwards. Additionally, dog fouling is unpleasant for anybody
We are asking you to reconsider granting permission to the Monmouthshire Hunt to ise your land.

We would be grateful if you could inform Action Against Foxhunting and Protect the Wild of the action/s you intend to take.

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