Silverton Hunt at Upton Hellions, 6.1.2018

Once more to the Silverton Hunt, who killed a fox (something they’ve now admitted), assaulted sabs and broke one of our cameras earlier this week. We were joined by friends from Somerset Hunt Saboteur Group. This time the hunt met at Upton Hellions near Crediton, with a field of about twenty riders plus four quad bikes. The only red coat was their field master Philip Saunders. Huntsman and whip both donned black coats and kept a low profile throughout the day. The hunt are on the back foot and running scared, having been caught red-handed killing a fox.

They moved across the landscape at quite a pace, never casting hounds out for long before bringing them back together and moving on. This meant most of our day was spent doing pincer movements with our two vehicles and trying to keep the hounds in sight. They drew coverts around the Broxfords, East Village, Dira and Preston before going via Trew Woods to the valley south of Gutton Wood.

At one point hounds were heard speaking not far from one of our foot teams, who witnessed a fox break just a field away from the pack. The terrier men had witnessed it too and gestured to point it out to the huntsman. Sabs covered the line of the fox and their presence acted as enough of a deterrent to cause the hunt to move on. By 14.30 the hunt appeared to have run out of coverts to draw. Just as well, as their hounds look emaciated and one of them had to be given a lift on the back of a quad bike because of an injury. Earlier in the day, sabs had seen hounds being shoved and hit at the meet as they looked for attention.

It won’t surprise you that the main thing we will emphasise once again is the completely inappropriate behaviour of Devon & Cornwall Police. A police car arrived early afternoon, having been called by the hunt, and stopped one of our vehicles to do a vehicle check and hold us up. When we asked what allegation had prompted a police response, we were told there had been an “unspecified complaint”. This from a police force that regularly tells us there are no officers available to attend when sabs are assaulted, our vehicles damaged, or foxes hunted and killed.

A terrier quad being illegally driven with two masked passengers and no visible numberplates arrived on the road in front of us, as we were held up by police. Sabs pointed this out to the officers who agreed to deal with it after they’d finished with us. As the other team were following the hunt at this point, we decided to stick around to see if the police followed through with their promise. Surprise, surprise… a few minutes later the police got back in their vehicle and were about to drive off. We queried why they still hadn’t spoken to the terrier men but the police just drove off.

Here we have a road traffic offence being committed in full view of the police and they once again turn a blind eye. If that quad bike had been involved in a road accident, the fact it was carrying two passengers would have invalidated its insurance (if indeed it had any!). And the fact it was being driven by masked individuals with no legible numberplate would have allowed them to flee the scene.

Further down the road our other vehicle was pulled over. By this time, police had obviously decided they’d better have a reason prepared. They told us they had come out because of complaints about “disrespectful trespass”. We are still none the wiser what this even means and why a civil matter such as trespass merits a police response.

As soon as police left, and once again emboldened by police inaction, multiple illegally driven quad bikes then engaged in a blocking manoeuvre at the instruction of hunt master Phil Saunders. They blocked us in front and behind on a public road, got off their quads and surrounded our vehicle. One of the terrier men damaged our wing mirror. Unable to leave and surrounded by thugs we made a 999 call. As we described the situation and the aggressors, the police call handler said “they’re antis, are they?”, echoing the hunt’s standard term for sabs. A different police officer called us back later and appeared more reasonable, but by this time the quad thugs had left the area and the hunt had packed up.

We’re disappointed to have to ask you for a second time this week to contact Devon & Cornwall Police and politely and constructively ask them why police attended and held us up in the first place (at the request of the hunt), why they failed to do anything about traffic offences being carried out in front of their faces, and point out to them that yet again their inaction was taken by hunt thugs as a green light to escalate their threatening behaviour towards sabs.

We will be making our own formal complaint to the police.