A former joint master of the Pytchley with Woodland Hunt in Northamptonshire, Mark Ferguson, has successfully appealed his 2022 conviction for assault, with the judge concluding that a hunt saboteur was the real aggressor.
During the appeal hearing at Nottingham Crown Court on August 29th and 30th, His Honour Judge Swanson and two lay magistrates overturned a conviction of Assault Occasioning Actual Bodily Harm (ABH) and Criminal Damage. They discounted the evidence of North Cambs Hunt Sabs member Tina Holroyd and her fellow hunt saboteur Gareth Cheeseman as inaccurate and accused the pair of “gilding the lily”.
Mr Ferguson, of Skeffington in Leicestershire, was initially convicted of ABH by Nottingham Magistrates Court in March 2022. The charges were successfully challenged after the court was shown video footage of the altercation between Mr Ferguson and Ms Holroyd near Market Harborough in October 2019.
The video corroborated Mr Ferguson’s account that he had been asked by the local estate manager to help prevent Ms Holroyd and her group of hunt saboteurs from trespassing when the group became unreasonably provocative.
Finding her path blocked, the court heard that Ms Holroyd began acting in a highly dangerous way, attempting to pull Mr Ferguson down from his horse.
The judge concluded that Mr Ferguson responded in a reasonable and necessary manner, acting instinctively in order to defend himself, as well as prevent the sabs from trespassing further.
The appeal is a welcome instance of justice finally prevailing, however the initial conviction against Mr Ferguson betrays an unfortunate pattern of sabs coopting the British justice system to their own ends.
In 2018, West Midlands Hunt sab David Graham was found guilty of perverting the course of justice and handed a 12-month suspended sentence after giving police tampered video footage. In a strikingly similar case to that of Mr Ferguson, Graham had been following the Altherstone Hunt in Leicestershire when he trespassed onto Newton Burgoland Farm run by Henry and Thomas Milner.
An altercation occurred after the Milner Brothers tried to usher Graham off their land. Graham subsequently handed the police a video which had been looped to make it appear as though he was kicked multiple times.
Judge Ebrahim Mooncey remarked that it was a very serious offence and that "normally people would go to prison straight away". Instead Graham was ordered to pay £1,000 costs and ordered to carry out 100 hours of unpaid work.
Tim Bonner, chief executive of the Countryside Alliance, voiced concerns at the time that "producing dodgy footage, even in a bid to fool police, is very much at the heart of hunt sab tactics."
Similarly, in 2006, Notts Hunt Sabs member Ian Ross falsely accused a supporter of the Golden Valley Hunt of robbery and assault at a trail hunt near Haye-on-Wye. In fact, Ross and a fellow sab aggressively pushed a camcorder into hunt supporter Jeffrey Poulton’s face in what Mr Poulton’s barrister described as a deliberate ‘set-up’ against his client. Poulton wept with relief upon being cleared of the charges
Indeed, hunt saboteurs are far more likely to be the perpetrators of violence, rather than the victims. This is evidenced by the swathes of sabs who have been convicted of assault, including Daffyd Hughes, Megan Thornbury, Alexandra Dennis and the infamous Paul Allman.
Allman, who boasts a string of criminal convictions, was found guilty of assault against two members of the Wynnstay Hunt in Cheshire in August 2023. He appealed the case in May 2024, claiming – like Tina Holroyd – that he had been the victim of an assault by huntsman Hugh Hutchinson Smith. Thankfully, the judge at Chester Crown Court upheld his sentence of 20-weeks imprisonment.