Hare coursing - landowner's statement

AFTER MOVING to the fen some ten years ago, we soon came to expect visits from illegal hare coursers each year between the months of October and March. When we first arrived, coursing was still legal with the landowner's permission and a few farming neighbours succumbed to the offers of money for permission to hunt with dogs, but more often than not, some of my neighbours were intimidated into granting permission.

On one occasion, a farming neighbour drew a plan of the fen showing his fields on it and gave it to the hare coursers with a request to keep to his land and not hunt on his neighbour's fields. Needless to say, this request was not followed and I observed the men with their dogs coursing on many neighbouring fields while other men without dogs, but from the same group, were seen investigating farm buildings located nearby. The relationship between hare coursing and the later theft of farm machinery, scrap metal, diesel and domestic oil is well established and the men snooping around dwellings and outbuildings I witnessed on this occasion was something I would be accustomed to seeing over the ensuing years.

On average, I report approximately six incidents a month during the peak season for hare coursing (November-February). However, I observe an equal amount of incidents per month which I don’t report due to a number of factors e g difficulty in identifying vehicles, numbers and descriptions of men and dogs, direction of travel etc.

Those incidents I do report are those that I believe have a reasonable chance of resulting in a positive outcome i e apprehension of culprits, and on all these occasions I have continued my observations from a vehicle and passed relative details of new locations to the police control room citing the original incident number to facilitate the redirection of resources. Needless to say, this action on my part leaves me open to a degree of risk but I see no other option if the police are to stand any chance of catching the coursers in the act.

However, despite my keeping the police fully informed of the hare coursers location as I follow them, there has not been one occasion when they have been apprehended or even come close to becoming apprehended as the police never attend and this is despite my trailing the coursers for anything up to two hours and making sure that current locations are updated when they move from area to area.

I have been taking this risk now for over eight years and have seen no benefit by way of arrests despite my assisting the police and as of the end of the coursing season in spring this year, I vowed not to continue giving this assistance but will continue to report incidents of hare coursing when I see them.

The incidents of hare coursing over the last nine years that have directly affected us by an average number of three to four incidents a year. This usually involves my having to confront the men who are on my land or about to encroach upon it with their dogs and although the risk of threats and violence are a consequence of my actions, I am left with no alternative, as the likelihood of a police presence attending my call for assistance, is from previous experience something that will not materialise. On at least two occasions my wife has been intimidated by hare coursers as she has attempted to drive along our farm track to reach home.

On those occasions where the hare coursers dogs have got among our hens and our goats, I have had to resort to firing a shot towards the dogs with a warning that I shall shoot the dogs if they are allowed to continue worrying our livestock. The coursers place great value on their dogs, so catch them up and disappear rapidly when I make such threats which I would, if given no option, carry out.

In respect of the incidents that directly affect us, the distance from our house can be as little as 40 metres and although our land may extend to just a little under five acres it is our garden and the presence of the coursers on it that make it a close up and personal attack on our home. The risk to my property and family from revenge or retaliatory attacks from the coursers I confront is not lost on me but if I do not stand up to them, no one else will and for that I reason I will continue to do so.

As commented on earlier, the police seldom, if at all, attend an incident and on the rare occasion when I do meet an officer who was despatched to investigate the incident, it is usually at least an hour after the coursers have left the area. When questioned as to why it took them so long to attend they normally cite lack of resources and/or that they did not know the geography of the area. More worryingly, it is apparent from my conversations with these police officers that they do not regard hare coursing as a crime as such and do not feel they should give it a high priority, despite me reminding them of how intimidating the coursers presence on your doorstep can be.

I have had numerous discussions with senior officers on how resources could be better utilised when responding to reports of hare coursing and have cited the many occasions when I have followed the coursers from area to area and kept police control updated of the changes in location and how this could be utilised on a bigger scale if members of the Farm and Country Watch scheme became involved through the mobile text service already in place and used to advise of crimes committed in a member's area. This and many other suggestions have fallen on deaf ears.

The previous and current Wildlife Crime Officers are keen to see such a scheme introduced but they agreed with me that the fundamental problem is lack of resources and the attitude held to hare coursing by many fellow officers. They also agreed that such exercises as Galileo are futile as they know full well that when they prepare for a “day of action” their colleagues in the team will inevitably at short notice, be called upon to attend other higher priority incidents elsewhere in the county, leaving just one or two officers to carry out the task for the day.

Incidentally, a meeting has been arranged by the police for October 10th at Sleaford so those affected by hare coursing can discuss the issues involved in policing the crime. Naturally I shall be attending along with a few others who I have spoken with over the years and we already agree on two things: why have the police left it until now to arrange the meeting and it will be just another PR exercise which will have little or no effect on the numbers of incidents and/or arrests.

Sorry to have gone on a bit but if you consider that if a bunch of men regularly visited an average street in a town and started intimidating people by walking through gardens and nosing into their sheds and garages and the police showed no interest, the community would be in uproar but play this scenario out in a remote rural location and who takes notice and who cares?

WRITTEN SEPTEMBER 2012

NOTE: The author of this article is a landowner in the Bourne area but his name
and address have been withheld for obvious reasons.