Affiliations: Bedforsdshire & Buckinghamshire Hunt Sabs, SHAC
Location: n/a
Emily Hepburn is no stranger from getting into trouble with the law, disrupting trail hunts across Bedfordshire and Buckinghamshire with the Beds & Bucks Hunt sabs.
Involvement With SHAC
According to the website AnimalRightsExtremism.info, Hepburn was allegedly one of the seven activists who pled guilty to various transgressions in September 2014 at the age of 24, a year after being released on bail, following involvement in the infamous Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty (SHAC) campaign against Huntingdon Life Sciences (HLS) that lasted until 2014.
Hepburn and Alexis Bathory are thought to have made a guilty plea for “Harassment, Alarm or Distress” at demonstrations for her actions over the period 2011-2012, alongside Three Counties Hunt sab accomplice Emma Phipps, among others.
SHAC by this point had become one of the most violent animal rights campaigns to-date, attracting misguided hunt saboteurs from across the UK. Hepburn was, at that time, just another lost youth in the ranks of Lynn Sawyer, who helped orchestrate the campaign, and David Blenkinsop, who executed many of its most violent acts.
Then a young woman, Hepburn was associated with what one judge described as a "ruthless and sustained campaign" against the HLS scientists, who were carrying out life-saving research at the institute in Cambridgeshire.
This included: false allegations of child abuse, sending hoax bombs, and delivering sanitary towels allegedly contaminated with the AIDS virus to traumatise staff.
The campaign became so violent that it included extremists planting both fake and real explosive devices into the scientists’ cars. Other vehicles were set on fire and windows were smashed.
Meanwhile, HLS managing director Brian Cass was severely beaten outside his home by three masked sabs using axe handles, among whom was extremist Blenkinsop. In a separate incident, the company’s marketing director Andrew Gray was attacked with a chemical spray to his eyes and beaten.
Assault
But Hepburn could not learn from her mistakes, becoming embroiled with more undesirable sabs only years later.
In 2017, Hepburn and her Beds & Bucks sab-companion Paula Lamont were convicted of attacking a female member of the Oakley Hunt in Bedfordshire. A video shows the pair swearing and aggressing hunt members:
According to Fieldsports, the pair were fined over £2,000. However, their convictions were overturned on appeal.
Injunction for Trespass
The Times reported in November 2018 that Hepburn was also temporarily banned by an injunction from disrupting the Fitzwilliam Hunt.
Hepburn, Lamont, and five other sabs were handed injunctions for trespassing on Sir Philip Naylor-Leyland's Milton Estate, which hosts the Fitzwilliam Hunt’s trail hunting activities.
This profile is a stub. You can help expand it by sending information to info@behindthemasks.co.uk or Whatsapp +44 7985 517452