The Law is Strong Enough Already - For Us.

Yet another shot across the bows of the Countryside Alliance. I do so enjoy Countryside Alliance baiting - it should be a recognised sport. They do make it so easy though.

A member of the Countryside Alliance (probably a city stockbroker) was being interviewed yesterday on the Farming Today programme and said the law was already sufficient on fox hunting - you kill a mammal and you're prosecuted. However, they are leaning on a half-truth, which is their usual refuge.

Yes, in theory, killing a mammal unlawfully can already be prosecuted under existing law. In practice, that statement quietly dodges three awkward realities: who gets prosecuted, what offences are actually charged, and how intent and mitigation are treated.

First, who is prosecuted.
Ordinary individuals acting alone are far more exposed than organised hunts. A lone person caught killing a fox illegally has no organisational buffer, no legal war chest, and no ability to diffuse responsibility. Hunts, by contrast, operate collectively, on private land, with multiple actors and a fog of plausible deniability. The hounds did it. The huntsman was elsewhere. The fox doubled back. The kill was “accidental”. Responsibility evaporates into the mist like breath on a frosty morning.

Second, what is prosecuted.
Most cases involving hunts do not hinge on proving a fox was killed. They hinge on proving intent to hunt illegally. That is vastly harder. The Hunting Act does not criminalise the death of a fox per se; it criminalises hunting with hounds as an activity. Proving that a death occurred is not enough. Prosecutors must show that the hunt was deliberately pursuing a wild mammal, not trail hunting, not flushing to guns, not some other permitted activity that just happened to go wrong. This evidential threshold is high, and hunts know it.

Third, intent, mitigation and excuse.
Courts do not operate in a moral vacuum. They consider intent, accident, proportionality and mitigation. A defence of “no intention to kill”, “loss of control of hounds”, “unexpected behaviour of the fox”, or “reasonable steps taken to comply with the law” is routinely advanced. These arguments may be thin, but they are legally relevant. They also tilt proceedings heavily in favour of organised defendants who can afford specialist counsel and expert witnesses.

This is where the Countryside Alliance’s claim really collapses. The law is not simply about whether a mammal dies. It is about enforceability. A law that relies on proving subjective intent in a fast-moving outdoor environment, policed sporadically, against defendants with resources and rehearsed defences, is weak by design. That is not accidental. It is the point.

Meanwhile, enforcement itself is uneven. Police forces rarely prioritise hunting offences. The CPS is cautious. Cases are complex, politically sensitive, and resource-intensive. The result is predictable: very few prosecutions, even fewer convictions, and a culture in which the law is treated as an inconvenience rather than a boundary.

So when the Countryside Alliance says “the law is already strong enough”, what they mean is that it is strong enough for them. Strong enough to look tough on paper. Weak enough to be sidestepped in practice. And elastic enough to ensure that accountability, like the fox, rarely survives the chase.

This is not about rural ignorance of the law. It is about a law structured in a way that protects organised hunting while exposing individuals. That is why repeated calls for clarification, tightening and test cases keep coming back. The problem is not morality. It is architecture.

If the entire hunt was prosecuted and fined very heavily, even for the action of one, perhaps enforcement would be relatively easy, as few would be willing to take the risk.