The Sheffield Hunt Saboteurs group has encouraged a supporter to deliberately waste police time, instructing them to “exaggerate the situation as far as your safety is concerned,” according to screenshots seen by BTM.
The image shows a Facebook message exchange between the Sheffield Hunt Saboteurs group and one of their apparent supporters. The sab group encourages the individual to “Call 999 NOT 101” and “scream whilst you are on the phone as if you are being attacked”.
Supporters of legal trail hunting have long known that sab groups are prone to lies and exaggeration to suit their campaigns. Now it appears they are happy to sabotage the work of a local police force too.
Hoax calls to emergency services, like the ones Sheffield Hunt Sabs are encouraging their supporters to make, put significant pressure on emergency control rooms, making them unavailable for real, potentially life-threatening incidents.
A Freedom of Information request submitted by The Star found that a huge number of hoax calls are already keeping South Yorkshire emergency services unnecessarily busy.
South Yorkshire Police, Sheffield’s territorial police force, received 2,089 hoax calls between September 2020 and August 2022, an average of around 87 calls per month.
Adding to these numbers and forcing the police to waste time and money attending bogus incidents could cost seconds, if not minutes, which sadly can be the difference between life and death.
What Sheffield Hunt Saboteurs describe as the police “drag[ging] their heels” might better be described as the South Yorkshire Police making sensible decisions about what their relatively small rural force of 92 officers should be doing with their time.
Police constabularies nationwide have launched several campaigns to educate the public about the dangers of hoax-calling 999. These campaigns are often aimed at the parents of bored children, and top tips include “keeping children busy with productive activities.” South Yorkshire Police might consider a campaign for the similarly juvenile Sheffield Hunt Sabs.
The Sheffield Hunt Saboteur’s instructions, which call on supporters to embellish their encounters with huntsmen and give knowingly false information to police operatives, may not only be inconsiderate but illegal.
The offence of Wasting Police Time is contained within Section 5(2) of the Criminal Law Act 1967, which states that the offence is committed when a person causes any wasteful employment of the police by knowingly making to any person a false report, orally or in writing, tending to:
show that an offence has been committed; or,
give rise to apprehension for the safety of any persons or property; or,
show that he has information material to any police inquiry.
Supporters who followed the Hunt Saboteur group’s suggestion to pretend “as if you are being attacked” may find themselves in violation of Section 5(2), which carries a maximum sentence of imprisonment of up to six months and/or a fine of up to £2,500.
The Sheffield Hunt Sabs are a prolific operation, regularly harassing and disrupting legal trail hunts around Thoersby Park.
In January 2019, Behind The Masks reported on the violent assault of pensioner and judge Mark Davies by Sheffield Hunt Saboteurs Member Austin Jordan. During an argument, Jordan struck Davies across the face with a metal spray bottle, causing serious injury, including a cut lip and swollen nose.
