Howard acts to end violent clashes at country sport events
The Times
6 November 1993
Richard Ford
Animal rights protesters who disrupt a range of country sports including hunting, fishing and horse-race meetings will face imprisonment under proposals to be announced by the home secretary today.
The government is to create a criminal offence of disrupting a country sport as part of its drive to curb the activities of demonstrators who obstruct traditional country pursuits.
Michael Howard will tell Conservatives at Didcot in Oxfordshire today that the new offence of "obstructing or disrupting a country sport" will carry a penalty of three months in prison and/or a รบ2,500 fine.
The home secretary will also announce that the police are to get additional powers to deal with the increasingly violent clashes between hunt supporters and saboteurs. Mr Howard will tell Tories that he "will give police power to direct trespassers to leave land if they have reason to believe that protesters will disrupt or prevent a lawful activity".
It will become a criminal offence for people to ignore the police direction, and offenders will be liable to the same penalty as that to be imposed for obstructing a country sport.
Under the present law, simply to trespass on land is a civil wrong rather than a criminal offence and police can intervene only when public order breaks down or criminal offences are committed.
The new offence is the fourth in Mr Howard's series of 27 law and order measures to be unveiled in just over a week. He is expected to give further details of the government's plans to restrict bail within the next week.
The proposals will form part of a criminal justice bill to be introduced in the next parliamentary session. They follow a series of bloody confrontations at hunt meetings, with accusations of violence made by both sides.
Mr Howard's proposals are also aimed at activists who disrupt racing events such as the Grand National, and coarse fishing contests.
The British Field Sports Society said: "We are delighted with what the government is proposing. It is absolutely necessary to deal with, and control, the trespass and violence by hunt saboteurs."
The National Trust has postponed until next spring a debate on whether deer hunting is cruel and should be banned on trust-owned land.
A resolution calling for an enquiry into deer hunting, proposed by the League Against Cruel Sports, was to have been put to a vote at today's annual general meeting of the trust in north London. On Tuesday the High Court upheld the league's complaint that the resolution had been presented in a way that could be misleading.
