The large group of hunt saboteurs who disrupted a grouse shoot at the Wemmergill Estate on 12th August boasted of being paid £200 each to aggravate guests and incite violence, according to an eyewitness.
The observer, who we are choosing not to name for safety reasons, reported that the saboteurs arrived in two coaches, apparently from Lincolnshire. No sooner had the guns finished their first drive on the County Durham estate when a mob of approximately 70 sabs appeared from the other side of the hill and began taunting and jeering.
Photos posted online show that the young men, wearing black masks and balaclavas, were from the Staffordshire Hunt Saboteurs and Calder Valley Hunt Sabotuers groups, supported by the Hunt Saboteurs Association (HSA).
The hooded youths reportedly tried to rile up local gamekeepers, challenging them to a fight so that they could record the ensuing violence on their phones. Thankfully, cooler heads prevailed.
The shoot’s organisers, abandoning their plans to celebrate the Glorious Twelfth, then rang the police. Our eyewitness reports that officers arrived on the scene and tried to deescalate the situation before sabs started letting the air out of the police cars’ tires. One of the group was detained in handcuffs and briefly placed under arrest.
At this point the shoot guests tried to leave the moor but were blocked by sabs lying down in the road. When the guests attempted to negotiate, saying that they were calling off the shoot, the sabs replied that they were being paid £200 each for the whole day and so needed to stay.
The sabs remained lying down in the road, preventing the shooting party from leaving the moor. Eventually police were able to move them along on the grounds that they were trespassing on private property. By their own reports the sabs left a little after 4pm.
Assuming a party of 70 hunt saboteurs, the total cost to the HSA of paying each of the masked thugs for the day would be £14,000. Added to this, the company Coach Hire 4 U estimates that a 70-seater coach (with no toilet on board) from Lincoln to Wemmergill Beck would cost a minimum of £1,727.72. That results in a total cost of £15,727.72 – no mean feat for an organisation that relies on public donations.
For years there has been speculation as to how the HSA pays for its stunts. In 2009 the Guardian reported that the cosmetics company Lush was funding the HSA to the tune of £50,000. In 2018-19, the company gave the HSA an additional £20,000.
If Lush familiarised themselves with BTM’s rogues gallery, they would be aware that this money is supporting violent, extremist and at times criminal behaviour. Photographs from the Wemmergill attack show that sabs scrawled the acronym ACAB (All Cops Are Bastards) onto the rear windshield of a police car. ACAB has been classified as a ‘hate slogan’ by the Anti-Defamation League.
The attack by hunt saboteurs against a perfectly legal grouse shoot demonstrates once and for all that these masked thugs are not really interested in upholding the law against fox hunting. They are merely looking for an excuse to cause trouble and engage in mindless class warfare.
Officers from the Durham Constabulary should be praised for their efforts in moving the sabs off of the private estate and ensuring that no shooting guests came to any harm.