Eggesford Hunt, Northlew, 31.08.24

On Saturday we caught the Eggesford Hunt digging out after dark, with young children watching.

The hunt had met at Lower Gorhuish farm, east of Northlew, for an evening cubbing meet. Some members of the hunt started leaving as it was getting dark, but hounds could still be heard in the valley. The hound van and several support vehicles were also still in the yard. Sabs converged on the Longfield Copse area in pitch-black darkness from multiple directions, guided only by the occasional barking and squealing from the hounds.

As we got closer, we could hear voices and the sound of spades digging into hard ground. It was pretty clear we were walking into a dig out situation. As sabs emerged from the darkness, huntsman Jason Marles gathered up the hounds that had been waiting at the dig out site and hastily marched them back to the farm. The terriermen packed away their equipment and scarpered on their quadbike. As you can see from our footage, two entrances had been blocked with soil and a third was left open, presumably to allow for a terrier to be entered into the earth. There was also a patch of disturbed ground with clear spade marks, which turned out to be a backfilled dugout crater.

Two of those taking part in the digout were Ben Vincent and Emily Harland, the same deranged couple whom we’d caught digging a fox out of a badger sett at the Axe Vale Hunt earlier this year. Police have since dropped their investigation into that incident – something Ben can also be heard gloating about in our footage. Much more on that soon!

We cannot be certain whether Saturday’s dig out was aborted when sabs arrived or whether the fox was sadly killed by hounds just minutes before. The sound made by the hounds as we were crossing fields to get to the site leads us to worry that a kill might have occurred.

What we found particularly shocking was that there were several young children who had been brought along to watch the dig out. Some of these were Jason’s own children. Forcing young children to take part in an illegal activity is bad enough. Taking them along to witness an animal being torn apart by hounds is nothing short of child abuse and clearly intended to desensitise them to animal abuse at a young age.