A few days after exposing the Torrington Farmers’ ties to now-convicted paedophile Andrew Webber, the Torrington Farmers’ huntsman and his assistant assaulted one of our sabs yesterday morning during their cubbing meet.
The hunt had met at Alverdiscott, on land between West Woodland and Alscott Barton. When we arrived the hunt had already unloaded their hounds and begun drawing one of the gullies on foot. Hounds were scattered and quadbikes and 4x4s were lined up either side of the gully to spot for and push back any foxes trying to escape.
We soon put a stop to that. Within 5 minutes of dropping sabs into the field and sending the drone up over the hunt, they gave up and started walking in direction of Alscott Farm, run by John and Mandy Ridd. “We’re just exercising the hounds” and “we’re hunting a trail” were muttered almost simultaneously in protestation by members of the hunt who had got up before sunrise in order to satiate their bloodlust.
Unable to get their fix, the hunt turned their anger on sabs. One of our runners was bundled to the ground by Steve Craddock and his mate, who proceeded to rip off the sab’s mask and hat as he was lying on the floor.
We spent the next two and a half hours (no word of exaggeration!) watching Craddock fail to gather his straggler hounds. He was ferried around on the back of a quad from field to field, blowing his horn to try and gather them, while terrierman Andrew Braunton drove loops in his Mitsubishi Shogun to spot from the road. Eventually Craddock came and begged us not to interfere if he let a few of the pack back out of the hound van to help him try and round up the less experienced hounds, who were completely ignoring his pathetic calls. Fortunately for everyone, that plan worked and eventually the hunt were on their way back to the kennels.
Acting on one of many tipoffs we received yesterday morning, we then headed to the South Tetcott to see if they were still out. They had been hunting in the area between the kennels and Northcott and several of their vehicles were still around when we arrived. However, as we completed our loop we found them on their way back to the kennels.
By now it was unfortunately too late to catch any of the other hunts we had been tipped off about but we would like to thank everyone who contacted us yesterday and encourage you to please continue sending us your tipoffs.
Tipoffs
By text to 07717473305 (please send a standard text, as mobile signal is often not good enough to receive calls or messages that require mobile data)
Via message to our Facebook page.
We can’t always respond to every tipoff but we will always try. Even if we are unable to attend, your tipoffs enable us to alert locals in the vicinity of the hunt, so they can protect their animals and film the hunt where possible.
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