Mark Hankinson Wiki
Mark Hankinson Biography
Who is Mark Hankinson ?
A prominent hunter overturned his conviction for encouraging illegal fox hunting in two private webinars by claiming his advice to use trail hunting was to fool animal rights activists, not police.
Mark Hankinson, 61, is alleged to have told members of the Game Bureau to use legal trail hunting as a “smokescreen” for criminal activity while he was director of the Masters of Foxhounds Association.
The indictment was launched after spoilers leaked footage of his August 11, 2020 webinar, which was attended by 100 people, including police officers, lawyers and a member of the House of Lords, to police and the media.
The hunter, from Frampton Farm in Sherborne, Dorset, was accused of intentionally encouraging hunters to use trail hunting, where horsemen and hounds follow a previously laid trail, as “a farce and a fiction” for pursuit and illegal killing of animals.
Last year he was found guilty of encouraging the commission of an illegal hunting offense at Westminster Magistrates’ Court and ordered to pay a £1,000 fine and £2,500 in costs.
But in appealing his conviction at Southwark Crown Court, Hankinson insisted he was referring to the practice of planting false leads to fool saboteurs who disrupt legal hunts, not the police.
Giving evidence in front of a judge and two magistrates, the hunter did not deny saying: “It is much easier to create a smoke screen if you have more than one layer of trace operating and that is what it is about, trying to portray the people who see that you go about your legitimate business.
Judge Gregory Perrins said today
At his trial in Westminster Magistrates’ Court last year, Hankinson claimed his words were intended to “help educate our members and enforce the need for proper practice”.
He said that he had simply warned attendees about the “need [for] adequate proof of that for when they are being examined by malicious opponents”, detailing an incident in which one of his hunters was attacked by “hunting saboteurs.” “.
Judge Gregory Perrins said today: “Someone who heard his words might well have taken the view that he was encouraging illegal hunting.”
The judge said he and the magistrates were dissatisfied with the criminal standard, it was his intention to encourage illegal hunting, and allowed the appeal against his conviction, highlighting a second webinar in which nothing he said was the subject of any charges.
“We accept that his role within the Game Bureau was to enforce the law and the Game Bureau itself is committed to legal hunting,” he said.
READ RELATED: Is Lesly Ramirez From El Salvador On Facebook? Bio, Partner, Family & Sentence Update
“Under those circumstances, it would be unusual if they now made the decision to host a series of webinars that included tips on how to avoid the ban.”
He added: “What is perhaps more significant, however, is the fact that the appellant’s words in the first webinar do not amount to clear evidence of encouraging illegal hunting.”
The case had been brought by The League Against Cruel Sports, an anti-hunting campaign organization that was instrumental in bringing about the 2004 Hunting Act.
After Hankinson won his appeal, the League urged the Government to strengthen the Hunting Act.
Its chief executive, Andy Knott, said: “The outcome of the appeal changes nothing in terms of our position, because only by strengthening the Game Act by closing its many loopholes and banning so-called trail hunting can illegal hunting be adequately stopped and those determined to carry on.” the persecution of wildlife brought to justice.
“While we wait for those in power to do the right thing and enforce the Hunting Law, we urge those who license potential criminal activity on their land to remove those permits and help us put an end to this so-called sport.” . .’
Tim Bonner, executive director of the Countryside Alliance, said the successful appeal raised “big questions about the knee-jerk reaction” to the conviction.
“Some institutional landowners have banned legal trail hunts, and police and CPS have launched a series of lawsuits against the hunts, many of which have already failed,” he said in a statement.
‘Trail hunting is a legitimate activity carried out by hundreds of hunts across the country.
‘As this successful appeal shows, police, the public and politicians must be extremely careful about believing false accusations made by anti-bias hunting activists.’
Source: https://wikisoon.com/
