November 2026
QUICK NEWS
- Oxfordshire hunt kills fox
- Leicestershire hunt kills fox
- Gloucestershire hunt kills fox
- Dorset hunt kills fox
- Devon/ Somerset staghunt kills stag
- Somerset staghunt causes RTA between car and stag
- Somerset staghunt kills stag
- Cambridgeshire hunt chases six foxes in one day
- Somerset stag hunters in court
- Kent hunt incite violence
- Kent hunt horse suffers fatal injury
- Somerset hunt violence
- Rutland hunt violence
- Cornish hunt files for voluntary strike off
- Leicestershire hunt loses event sponsor
- AAS holds awareness-raising march in Devon town
TOP STORIES
KILLS
On 18/09/26, the Heythrop Hunt killed a fox. The Hunt Saboteurs Association has since published distressing footage of Josh Tierney (now with the Heythrop) pulling the fox’s from a ‘hound’s’ jaw, and dragging it over a fence.
On 16/10/26, the Quorn Hunt killed a fox around Kirkby Bellars, near Melton Mowbray, Leicestershire. Footage was captured on a drone by Northants Hunt Saboteurs showing the Quorn’s huntsman swinging the fox’s body, encouraging hounds to repeatedly tug and pull at it: “when the hounds finally take the fox from him, he bends over them as they tear at it and then blows his hunting horn – most likely sounding the traditional call of a kill.”
Two terriermen can also be seen ‘strongly engaged in a brutal ‘tug of war’ with the hounds over the ‘freshly killed’ body. This shows ‘the reality of cub hunting’ and a ‘calculated and deliberate act of training young hounds to kill foxes’. On 22/10/26 the Duke of Beaufort Hunt killed a fox near Calne, Wiltshire. Footage captured on drone by the Wiltshire Hunt Sabs and Cirencester Illegal Hunt Watch
shows hunt staff moving in to remove the body when they realised they were being filmed. Just over a week later they were caught chasing a brace, which were flushed towards the pack of hounds.“
https://www.facebook.com/reel/1102849285923578
On 31/10/26 the Blackmore and Sparkford Vale killed a fox at their opening meet at Purse Caundle. Footage obtained by the North Dorset Hunt Saboteurs and the Dorset Borders Hunt Saboteurs has been passed to the police. Whipper-in Ben Summersgill is seen running in to retrieve the fox’s body in an attempt to hide it. Summersgill, along with huntsman George Pierce,is already due to face trial at Poole Magistrates Court on the 14th – 15th April 2027, as well as to appear at Taunton Magistrates Court on the 24th and 26th of February 2027, each on fox hunting charges. The BSV are currently subject to a Community Protection Notice and have eighteen convictions in three years against them, including for Actual Bodily Harm and theft as well as hunting offences.
On 17/10/26, the Devon & Somerset Staghounds killed a stag in Marsh Wood in the Barle Valley.
He was chased for hours up and down steep valleys, circling back to his harem, and shot when past the point of exhaustion dangerously close to a sab.
On 26/10/26, the Quantock Staghounds killed a stag near Dukes Plantation in the Quantock Hills. This stag had a large, infected wound on its side and an apparent broken leg, and so is thought to have been the same stag injured after a hunt-induced RTA on 12/10/26, when the Quantock Staghounds hunted a stag into road where it was hit by young female driver with a child in the car. A witness report contains this account:
“‘At 4.30pm on 12th October my husband and I were driving along the A39 between Nether Stowey and Holford. There was a hunt on as men were in the hedges alongside the road shouting and hollering waving sticks. A gigantic Stag that was running for it’s life ran across the road colliding with the vehicle in front. The Stag was flipped over the top of the car. It’s leg kicked out smashing the rear nearside window. The Stag landed heavily on the verge. We stopped to assist the young female driver and her small child. They were uninjured but very badly shaken. This was a near fatal accident. We looked for the stag but couldn’t see him. The hunt fled the scene.”
Just a week later, on 19/10/26, the Quantock Staghounds again chased stag along A358 and onto the A39, and again on 26/10/26, and yet again on 02/11/26
Stag and fox chases continue. On 24/10/26, for example, the Beds and Bucks Hunt Saboteurs, along with Peterborough Hunt Saboteurs, report seeing no less than six foxes to safety from the Fitzwilliam Hunt. Huntsman for the Fitzwilliam Hunt, Shaun Parish is due to stand trial in December for charges under Section 1 of the Hunting Act, relating to an incident back in November 2024. Whipper- in Jacob Whalley has already pleaded guilty for the same incident.
COURTS, CASES, CHARGES
Although this offence was for attacking bar staff and not hunt-related, two notorious supporters of the Blackmore and Sparkford Vale Hunt, Jimmy Joseph Doggrell and Thomas Mark Doggrell, pleaded guilty on 26/10/26 to charges of using threatening unlawful violence to others (affray). They were sentenced to 8 months in prison suspended for two years, and ordered to pay £250 compensation to each of their victims, compensation for the damage they caused along with £187 surcharge and £85 cost.
Quantock Staghounds’ hunt master, Christopher Gibbons and huntsman, Martin Watts appeared at Taunton Magistrates’ Court on 22/10/26 where they pleaded ‘not guilty’ to charges of illegal hunting: Gibbons to two counts dated 16/03 and 23/04 of this year; Watts to one count on 23/04. The April allegation relates to a stag shot after becoming trapped behind a fence following a chase of more than five hours. Proceedings were adjourned for a case management hearing on 18/01/27. Members of Action Against Staghunting were present, and have put together this report.
HUNT VIOLENCE (and a dead horse)
The opening meet of the Kent Hounds saw this hunt incite a vulnerable man into violence against the West Kent Hunt Saboteurs. An off-duty police officer stepped in to restrain the man, and police were called. During this same hunt, a horse suffered a fatal injury.
This reel of a lone 76 year-old monitor being abused, following which he was hit across the head and knocked to the ground by Quantock Staghounds’ support,
is another example showing the aggression sabs are subjected to.
The Northants Hunt Saboteurs were subjected to aggressive behaviour from the Cottesmore Hunt on 31/10/26, with riders using their horses as weapons. Joint master Alister Gautrey was one of those involved in shouting and swearing at sabs; he then used his horse to stamp on a sab’s foot. Annoyed at the presence of saboteurs, the Hunt had called the police, but the sabs were able to show the police the video footage of the violence that had taken place.
FURTHER NEWS
It has been confirmed that the East Cornwall Hunt has filed for a voluntary strike off, despite (or because of) its liabilities.
Northants Hunt Saboteurs report that the Spire Hospital, a private healthcare provider in Nottingham, has withdrawn its sponsorship of the Quorn Hunt’s Ingarsby Chase – a cross-country horse event – after being presented with footage of the Hunt’s hounds ripping apart a fox (see above).
AND…
Having been postponed from 24/10 due to storms, Action Against Staghunting held a march in Tiverton on 31/10/26 to protest and to raise awareness about stag hunting in the nearby hills of Exmoor, and the Quantocks. It was well attended and a number of locals from Tiverton and surrounds joined. The speeches were powerful, and the police who attended were extremely helpful. Despite hollers from the pub which hosts the Tiverton Foxhounds’ Boxing Day meet, all passed peacefully, with many passers-by expressing their support.
