Location: Tile Hill, Coventry
Affiliations: West Midlands Hunt Saboteurs, AAF Midlands
Cathy Scott, leader of the infamous West Midlands Hunt sabs and controller of their Facebook page, often uses disreputable tactics in her self-obsessed war against legal trail hunting.
Like many sabs, she also happily surrounds herself with disturbing criminal followers, while the West Midlands Hunt sabs are receiving dwindling support.
Destroying Local Community and Businesses
Scott is renowned for attempting to destroy local community businesses in her campaign against trail hunting, as well as attempting to terrorise and blackmail local landowners into no longer hosting trail hunts.
Writing an anonymous letter she tried to intimidate one landowner. Without any evidence, she claimed that illegal fox hunting was taking place on the landowner in question’s property. This is routine saboteur behaviour – insinuating falsehood until it becomes reality.
Despite the claims Miss Scott has yet to produce any real, unedited footage of illegal fox hunting; instead she relies solely on intimidation tactics.
However, based on the company she associates with, her deplorable actions are unsurprising. Scott’s closest ally and partner in crime within the West Midlands sabs is David Graham (38), who laughably claimed to have been the victim of assault on 5 March 2016.
Two landowners, the Milner brothers, who had given a hunt permission to cross their land, rightly tried to escort Graham off their land, for, expectedly, he did not have their permission to be there and was therefore breaking the law. The brothers escorted the sabs off their land, yet days later Graham reported to the police that he had been assaulted.
Two years on, in the summer of 2018, the case was discontinued after Leicestershire police had analysed the films which Graham had provided, only to determine that “they had been doctored to present the incident in a different light”. Manipulating evidence is another illegal offence and Graham, as a consequence, was accused of perverting the course of justice and charged in September 2020. He was handed a 12-month suspended sentence and counted himself very fortunate not to be sent straight to jail for such a serious offence.
Judge Ebrahim Mooncey, who ruled on the case, said to Graham: "You submitted to the police video recorded evidence which was tampered with – which is perverting the course of justice. Normally people would go to prison straight away but in your case I'm mindful this case goes back to 2016, when you were 30 and now you're 35.”
As well as being handed a 12 month suspended sentence and 100 hours of community service, Graham was also fined £1,000.
It comes as no surprise that he and Scott took to social media to criticise the police of committing perjury themselves. Yet more disgusting was their decision to set up a GoGetFunding page to make gullible people pay for Graham’s crimes:
Funding amounts have since been altered, yet the page’s history records its first donation on 3 October 2020, within two weeks of Graham’s sentencing. Being criminally convicted for perjury is laughably considered a necessary “campaign cost”, according to Scott.
The West Midlands Hunt sabs also fleece their peculiar tribe of followers for drone costs, buying a car, petrol costs, buying a new camcorder, and even to “help equip our sabs with cameras”. This is an all too common shameless perversion of public goodwill by a group of extremists whose sole intention is to cause chaos and violence in the countryside.
The case of David Graham’s perjury in itself also proves that the West Midlands sabs are more than happy to tamper with evidence, further undermining the credibility of any material posted by saboteurs, either online or in person.
There is a serious cause for concern here. The group lacks credibility. Scott’s actions to date demonstrate intimidation without evidence in order to assert truth out of falsehood (as in the case of her letter to the landowner), or manipulation of evidence in order to attempt to pervert the cause of justice if taken seriously.
Scott’s only concern is to divide community and sew hatred in the countryside. Animal welfare clearly bares little significance in her motivation by virtue of her actions. As quoted by Scott in a balanced New York Times article which clarified tensions between sabs and hunts: “It’s a war, and it’s a war that needs winning.”
Her interest is purely polemical, showing that she will go to any length to disrupt and destroy a legal pursuit.
As well as intimidation with unfounded claims, Miss Scott also employs the tactic of destroying local businesses, just like sab Jenny MacRae.
Most recently, Scott has attempted to incite continuous hatred against a local community pub in Ilmington, bidding her supply of followers to leave bad reviews on the establishment’s online profiles as well as sending intimidating emails to the owner:
Small rural businesses are coming under attack by the likes of Scott, without any consideration for the livelihoods of those who work there.
Scott’s dishonest tactics of sabotage speak for themselves. She lacks credibility, hence the reason Channel 4 allegedly distanced itself from her after her attempt at sab-stardom.
Criminal Connections
Scott’s links to convicted criminal David Graham have already been established, but more disturbing still is her connection with evil sab Richard Williams, also of Coventry and who has been in hiding for some time.
Back in January 2020 Scott encouraged extremist Richard Williams to come out sabbing with her with the purpose of threatening and intimidating hunt members, along with David Graham.
After trespassing on private land during a legal trail hunt, Scott, Williams, and Graham were rightly asked to leave by two female hunt stewards. Just like other sabs, Williams reacted aggressively, with Scott and Graham providing back-up behind him.
Undeniable footage shows Williams accosting a steward and shouting in anger: “I just got out of jail for f**king murder, and I’ll f**king go back in again.”
In the same video, one cannot fail to hear the steward in panic asking Williams to stop touching her breasts, indicating sexual assault.
On the same day, Warwickshire Police were called to investigate the assault, as reported in a Telegraph article which was at that time yet to identify Williams.
In the video, Cathy Scott attempts to come and support Williams in the backgrounnd, trying to vault the fence into the private property.
Anyone who supports and is acquainted with someone claiming to be a murderer should take a look in the mirror and seriously reconsider their decisions, values, and beliefs. The incident was beyond deeply concering, leaving hunts across the West Midlands vulnerable and threatened by the kinds of sabs who unlawfully harass, sexually assault, and threaten murder week-in-week-out.
Meanwhile, Cathy Scott herself is no stranger to run-ins with the law. In 2010, she was the only protester charged with badger cull disruption. Scott breached an injunction taken out by the National Farmers Union in Gloucestershire, preventing anyone from protesting within 100 metres of local homes and banning the use of torches, LED lights, and camera flashes near the badger cull zone.
A court heard multiple allegations that Scott had run into a field shouting and waving a torch, having travelled all the way from Coventry. She luckily got away with it ‘Scott’-free, but there’s little doubt that she breached the injunction – especially in view of her questionable character and criminal associates.
Got any information about Cathy Scott? Send tips, photos and videos to info@behindthemasks.co.uk or WhatsApp +44 7985 517452