Rural Policing and Hare Coursing

John Glen Excerpts

Tuesday 7th March 2017 Commons Chamber

[John Glen (Salisbury) (Con)]

I am grateful to you, Madam Deputy Speaker, and to Mr Speaker for granting this Adjournment debate on rural policing and hare coursing. It is particularly important that we discuss this issue now, as we must reflect on, and learn lessons from, the most recent hare coursing season, which is coming to a close.

Hare coursing, poaching and the surrounding issues of antisocial behaviour should be matters of great concern for this House, both as individual crimes and examples of the challenges associated with policing rural communities. I have been struck by the number of hon. Members who have approached me following notification of the debate this evening. In particular, I would like to draw the House’s attention to my hon. Friend the Member for Louth and Horncastle (Victoria Atkins), who will be unable to contribute, but I understand she has a strong interest in some of the issues I am about to raise.

We must carefully consider two key issues. First, we need to recognise the damage sustained by farmers to their properties and their wellbeing, as many are made to feel intimidated by those carrying out these heinous acts. Secondly, we need carefully to consider the police’s approach to this problem and what tools are necessary to ensure that the law is effectively enforced.

[John Howell (Henley) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right on both points. On the first point, farmers can, of course, dig ditches and barricade their fences, but many in my constituency are afraid to undertake that work in case there is retaliation against their equipment as a result.

[John Glen]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. As somebody who used to live in his constituency, I empathise strongly with the concerns he raises. I will set out similar examples of my constituents who have shared the same experience.

My first and principal concern is the threat that hare coursing poses to farming communities. Hare coursers are not simply a few individuals quietly chasing hares on unused land: they are, most often, large groups who show serious contempt for the law. This results in a number of significant problems for my constituents. Farms are vandalised; people are intimidated; and often farmers are isolated and unable to count on the law for timely protection.

The National Farmers Union has found that hare coursing is now the most common crime experienced by farmers in Wiltshire. That has a number of troubling implications for rural communities.

[Dr Caroline Johnson (Sleaford and North Hykeham) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that hare coursers marauding across farmers’ land in their vehicles not merely cause an unsightly mess but vandalise livelihoods, and should be dealt with accordingly?

[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.

[Martin Vickers (Cleethorpes) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this Adjournment debate. The rural part of my constituency is served by Humberside police, which is a predominantly urban force, and the farming and rural community feels somewhat neglected. Does he agree that it is equally important that the rural community, wherever it is situated, is suitably prioritised by the police?

[John Glen]

I absolutely recognise the situation described by my hon. Friend. It is particularly true of hybrid constabularies that have to serve significant urban populations, but the rural element needs to be properly recognised.

May I urge the Minister to take those factors into consideration in his deliberations on the new police funding formula? Although Wiltshire is the 15th largest county geographically, it receives the fourth lowest budget from Government. The resources needed to tackle rural crime must be reflected in allocations within the overall funding envelope. That will require him to challenge his officials on the different spreadsheets that they put in front of him and make sure that the pockets of rural need are properly reflected in the review’s outcome.

[Matt Warman (Boston and Skegness) (Con)]

Is not the real challenge faced by rural police forces the fact that they have to deal not only with issues such as hare coursing, which is a form of organised crime, but with those challenges that are also faced by urban policing, including changing tactics for cybercrime and domestic violence? That is a perfect storm and it requires special attention.

[John Glen]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend, who once again comes up with a sensible analysis and a sense of how we need better to join up the different attempts to tackle this very difficult problem.

[Robert Jenrick (Newark) (Con)]

Is not one of the issues the lack of neighbourhood policing in some rural areas? In the northern part of my constituency, in Bassetlaw, we have a long-standing police officer, Bill Bailey. He knows the lanes; he knows many of the criminals; and he knows how to respond to and sort out such crimes. He is also fluent in the law in this area. All too often, when officers such as Bill retire, as he will do in October, they are replaced by police officers drawn from a much wider area. His replacement is likely to be drawn from urban areas such as Worksop and Retford, where crimes are very different. Response times will diminish, and, as my hon. Friend the Member for Cleethorpes (Martin Vickers) has said, it is difficult for people to be certain that police officers who understand the rurality of the area will be able to get out and sort out the problems.

[John Glen]

My hon. Friend makes a reasonable point. Like many Conservative Members, I gained some familiarity with my hon. Friend’s constituency in the weeks running up to his election. I would not want to comment on the specific example that he gave, but it is absolutely key that we have the right resources in the right places.

I return to the specific issue of hare coursing. I believe that it is both a policing and a judicial issue, and I want to raise three policy concerns that I hope the Minister will reflect on to ensure that constituencies such as Salisbury and south Wiltshire can effectively deal with hare coursers and the many disruptions and problems that I have just described. First, I ask the Minister to consider creating a more widespread infrastructure for seizing and rehousing the dogs used in such criminal activities. Will he look—perhaps not personally—into how the police organise themselves in that regard? Hare coursing dogs are high-value assets worth tens of thousands of pounds. I think that the threat of dogs being taken or rehomed, and therefore losing their value, will deter hare coursers. To be able to seize dogs, the police must have the appropriate kennels and facilities to look after them. In Wiltshire, despite a large number of hare coursing incidents, we do not have that vital infrastructure in place.

[Paul Flynn (Newport West) (Lab)]

I am listening with great interest to the hon. Gentleman’s remarks. Can he give us some idea of the extent of the hare coursing, badger baiting and illegal foxhunting that take place and the percentage of those incidents for which people have been prosecuted in the recent past?

[John Glen]

Actually, I can give the hon. Gentleman some of those statistics, if he will just wait a few minutes.

In terms of legislation, hare coursing offences sometimes fall under the Game Act 1831, which does not provide the powers of seizure and forfeiture of dogs and vehicles that the Hunting Act 2004 provides. Updating the 1831 Act could rectify that issue and allow more hunting dogs to be seized. In addition, if we gave police the ability to recover kennelling costs for seized dogs in a way similar to the process for seized vehicles, we could make that deterrent more financially viable.

Secondly, I hope the Minister will consider the penalties given to those guilty of poaching and hare coursing. Currently, the maximum possible penalty is unlimited. Despite that, the House of Commons Library reports that between 2010 and 2015, the average fine for offences under the Hunting Act was just £256.43. Wiltshire police told me that they had a recent case in which three males were sent to court for offences under the Night Poaching Act 1828. They had dogs, lamps and a gutting knife in their possession, and they had travelled some 100 miles from Wales to Wiltshire. The three men received a fine of just £50 each. The men were persistent offenders who were known to the police, and they were stopped again just three days after their appearance in court. Are we honestly surprised that when hare coursers have the opportunity to earn thousands of pounds betting on their illegal activities, such small fines do nothing to deter them? It is nothing short of outrageous that such individuals can simply give no comment at interview, go to court, plead guilty, accept a fine of £50 or £100 and return to the fields the very next day. Magistrates must be encouraged to use the full extent of the penalties available to them. As a former magistrate, I am very aware of the guidance that sometimes comes out, and I feel that it needs to be updated. Will the Minister commit to working with colleagues in the Ministry of Justice to examine such matters and ensure that sentencing guidance in this area is reviewed?

The third and final issue is conviction rates. On the figures I have, there were 2,169 reported incidents of hare coursing in Lincolnshire during the six months between September 2015 and March 2016. Some 176 men were charged or reported for summons, but only 25 were actually convicted, which is less than one in seven. Of the 176 individuals charged, 117 cases were discontinued, usually when witnesses declined to give statements for fear of reprisals. Even if CCTV cameras are used—presumably at the farmers’ expense—farmers are obliged to declare that they have individually put in an evidence-capture system, therefore putting their name on the record and risking retaliation through some of the apps I have described. That situation is simply blocking access to justice. Until the Government send a clear message that farmers will be properly protected and perpetrators brought to justice, the unwillingness to provide evidence will only increase. Will the Minister work with local police forces and the Crown Prosecution Service to ensure that farmers are not deterred from coming forward because the evidence they are required to gather is too costly or cumbersome to obtain or puts them at risk?

In conclusion, hare coursing is a serious issue, and we must not underestimate the financial and emotional harm it inflicts on vulnerable rural communities, and on farmers in particular. Despite pockets of good practice, more must be done to stop the increasing prevalence across the country. I am concerned that the overall framework governing policing and sentencing does not currently act as a sufficient deterrent. May I urge the Minister to look carefully at the measures I have suggested? We must send a clear message to hare coursers that they will no longer be able to get off the hook with paltry sentences and very low conviction rates. What they are doing is wrong, and we must not allow it to continue in the way currently experienced.