Name: David Blenkinsop
Location: West Sussex
Affiliations: Cheshire Hunt Saboteurs
Spreads terror: Blenkinsop is a notorious saboteur and animal rights extremist, with links to several organisations around the country. He has previously been sentenced to nearly a decade behind bars for various violent crimes, including assault and destruction of property.
Originally from West Sussex, Blenkinsop regularly travels as far as Cheshire in support of various hunt saboteur groups. In March 2025, he was spotted joining the infamous Stockport Monitors in an attack on the Wynnstay Hunt near Tybroughton in North Wales. Eyewitnesses said the sabs were armed with weapons including hammers and a machete. Four members of the Stockport mob were subsequently arrested.
In December 1999 Blenkinsop launched a concerted campaign against Brian Cass, the managing director of Huntingdon Life Sciences, in Cambridgeshire. It culminated in three individuals, including Blenkinsop, attacking Mr. Cass with staves and pickaxe handles. Blenkinsop was found guilty of unlawful wounding, after leaving a 7cm head wound during the cowardly attack, which Judge Neil McKittrick described as a wicked act against a defenceless man, and that it had nothing to do with legitimate protest:
"The purpose of your enterprise was to cause hurt and injury to Mr Cass. It was made worse by the use of weapons and three people swinging clubs against a defenceless man."
A neighbour who chased the attackers form the scene was sprayed in the face with CS gas. Luckily, DNA discovered on the pickaxe handles and clothes that were found a few days later led to his arrest.
Blenkinsop’s criminal record by no means stop here. In May 2000 he helped blow up a delivery lorry at Mutchmeats processing plant in Newclose lane, Witney, with a home-made bomb. Oxford Crown Court was told he used plastic bottles, petrol and fireworks to make the device, as well as eight others that were found under other trucks at the time. Happily, they failed to ignite due to rain. The cost of the attack was estimated at £45,000.
In August 2000 five cars belonging to Huntingdon employees living in Godmanchester, Cambridgeshire were attacked and identical devices were found. Blenkinsop admitted to constructing the bombs that destroyed three of the cars – a clear show of inflicting terror in innocents, even if no one was hurt. He was jailed in December 2002 for five and a half years, whilst he was already serving four and a half years for the attack on Mr. Cass.
The campaign was part of an Animal Liberation Front effort – a well-known extremist group.
Out of prison, Blenkinsop continued to cause disruption. In September 2015 he approached a marksman who was inspecting badger traps in Forthampton, Gloucestershire. The badger cull is designed to control the spread of bovine tuberculosis – a necessary action. The cull contractor, who has two children, said Blenkinsop called out his name, saying ‘I know who you are’ - a threatening approach.
The contractor stayed calm and told him he’d got the wrong person, but was shocked to learn that his licence had been suspended for his ‘own safety' by the police, even though he had done nothing wrong. Police banned him because of the confrontation by the animal rights extremist, which they deemed endangered him. This means that the marksman lost £5,000 in earnings. Damaging the local economy through disruption of countryside activities is something that the sabs are well acquainted with. The hunt providing jobs and livelihood for hundreds of people, and the sabs’ main effort is to get them shut down.
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