Rural Policing and Hare Coursing

Andrew Murrison Excerpts

Tuesday 7th March 2017 Commons Chamber

[John Glen]

I am grateful for my hon. Friend’s intervention: I absolutely agree. Again, I will come on to set out more examples and give the Minister some suggestions on what could be done to deal with the problem.

I want to outline some of the implications of hare coursing. First, when entering these private lands, hare coursers and poachers regularly cause criminal damage to gates, hedgerows, fences and growing crops. This creates financial costs arising from repairs to the damage and the need to increase security infrastructure, probably involving CCTV cameras. It also wastes a huge number of man hours as farmers are forced to look for damage and repair it. This is extremely time consuming, frustrating and upsetting for many farmers, whose land is the single most important asset of their business and their livelihood.

My constituent Chris Swanton, whose family have farmed on his farm for several generations, has regularly experienced at first-hand on his farm in South Wiltshire the problems I have described. He wrote to me saying:

“I get upset because I am very passionate about my farm and I have a certain amount of pride in the appearance of my fields and crops. I find it gutting and very depressing to drive around my farm after hare coursers have been all across my fields.”

It is totally unacceptable for farmers like Chris who have worked 80 hours a week preparing seed beds and planting crops to find them ruined by mindless vandals. His experiences are by no means unique, as this happens right across my constituency, and, from what colleagues have been telling me in the past few days, over large tracts of rural England.

The impact for victims is not merely economic. Many face unjustifiable intimidation and antisocial behaviour on their doorsteps. Hare coursers will often threaten and behave violently towards landowners who attempt to challenge them or collect evidence to report to the police.

[Dr Andrew Murrison (South West Wiltshire) (Con)]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[John Glen]

I would be delighted to give way to my hon. Friend and neighbour.

[Dr Murrison]

It is a great pleasure to contribute briefly to this debate. I congratulate my hon. Friend and neighbour on bringing this matter to the House’s attention. Does he agree that these are not good people and that these groups probably contain within them individuals who are intent also on acquisitive crime? Not only are they violent people, but they are probably also eyeing up the property of our rural constituents, which, as he will know, is very much under threat at the moment from bespoke criminality focused on thieving to order. The suspicion is that this population and the hare coursing population are very often one and the same thing.

[John Glen]

Those are characteristically wise words from my hon. Friend and neighbour, and I absolutely agree. This speaks to some of the suggestions that I am going to make about the nature of resourcing of rural policing. I am delighted that the Minister is here to hear those words and, I hope, respond positively.

Lincolnshire police found that the majority of people involved in hare coursing in their county already had the criminal histories that my hon. Friend refers to and often travelled for hundreds of miles to participate. This is particularly distressing for farming communities, who are genuinely vulnerable. The average age of farmers is now 59, and they often work alone, so there are few or no witnesses to the crimes that are perpetrated on their land. Farmers know too well the repercussions of trying to deter coursers from their own land—from targeted break-ins and theft on their farms, to extremes such as arson and direct physical attacks.

Another of my constituents, who understandably did not want to be named, lives on a farm with their teenage daughter. While on their own land, the constituent was confronted by three men with dogs who threatened that they would “do over” their car and carve up their crops. My constituent’s daughter now worries for her parent’s safety and is concerned that the coursers know where they live and what their car looks like.

It is completely unacceptable that constituents do not feel safe on their own land, and these are not isolated cases. In January, the BBC reported that violence and intimidation have escalated in the recent hare coursing season. One farmer, who also wished not to be named, fearing for his own safety, stated, “They would kill us if they could.”

I emphasise to the Minister that, for rural communities and farmers in particular, hare coursing is not simply a nuisance; it is a serious blight on livelihoods and wellbeing.

I want to turn to how we can ensure that there is an effective and coherent response by the police and the magistracy. In preparing for this debate, I was struck by the exasperation of constituents who tell me that they regularly reach out to the police but feel as if nothing is being done and that they are fighting hare coursers on their own. One constituent remarked that his tactic of digging ditches around the farm to stop the coursers’ vehicles felt almost medieval—building a moat to prevent the enemy from entering.

I pay tribute to Wiltshire police force. Its officers do very difficult work in challenging circumstances, and they should be commended for the innovative steps that they are taking to improve their response to rural crime. The general quality of their work was acknowledged by last week’s report from Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary, ranking them good across the board. Wiltshire police have put in place a number of initiatives, including funding six dedicated wildlife crime officers, and I welcome the news that further funding has been secured to train another five.

I recognise the apparent logic of weighting police funding by population size and demography, but cases such as hare coursing demonstrate that rural areas require specialist resources to ensure that isolated and sparser populated communities do not feel abandoned by law enforcement.