Eggesford Hunt huntsman Jason Marles has been convicted of illegally hunting a fox with hounds following an incident captured on drone footage during the hunt’s Boxing Day meet in December 2025.
Marles, 44, pleaded guilty to hunting a wild mammal with dogs at Pudson Farm, near Okehampton, when he appeared before Exeter Magistrates’ Court on 23 September 2026.
His conviction followed footage recorded by Devon County Hunt Saboteurs which showed a fox being bolted from an area of rubble before being pursued by hounds. Hunt saboteurs positioned on a farm track nearby were in position to stop the hounds from chasing the fox, and they confirmed that the fox managed to evade capture.
The footage shows Marles standing beside the area where the fox had taken refuge, close to a cattle barn. Two men with spades are moving rubble and digging at the site, while a child, who had dismounted from their pony, also watches what is happening.
Devon County Hunt Sabs identify the two men digging as Eggesford terrier man Tom Bounsall and landowner Lloyd Heard.
After Marles realised a drone was overhead, and they had walked back to the farmyard, Marles and Heard swapped coats in a comical, and ultimately futile attempt to avoid identification.
After several minutes, the fox bolts from its refuge and runs for the surrounding cover. The hounds follow, beginning the chase. No attempt to call the hounds back was made.
Heard was also charged alongside Marles with hunting offences relating to both the Boxing Day incident at Pudson Farm and a second incident near Crediton in February 2026.
As the landowner of Pudson Farm, Heard also faced a further charge under Section 3 of the Hunting Act of knowingly permitting his land to be used for hunting a wild mammal with dogs.
The proceedings against Heard were subsequently withdrawn by the prosecution. No reason for that decision has been made public.
Heard also has a close family connection to the leadership of hunting’s governing body. He is the son-in-law of British Hound Sports Association Executive Director Julian Barnfield.
Barnfield is himself a former huntsman with previous Hunting Act convictions. Whilst huntsman of the Heythrop Hunt, he pleaded guilty to four separate counts of unlawfully hunting foxes between 2011 and 2012.
Barnfield also has a longstanding connection to former Prime Minister David Cameron. In 2008, when Barnfield was facing an earlier prosecution under the Hunting Act, Cameron – then leader of the Opposition and Barnfield’s constituency MP – wrote to the Attorney General on his behalf following a private meeting between the two. Those proceedings against Barnfield were subsequently discontinued on a technical issue.
The connection is worth noting. The Heythrop was David Cameron’s local hunt, and he rode with it on numerous occasions before the Hunting Act came into force. It is also reported that David Cameron is ‘friendly’ with Barnfield, Heard’s father-in-law.
Cameron remains a vocal supporter of fox hunting. As recently as September 2026, he described the incoming ban on so-called ‘trail hunting’ as “completely wrong”, urging the minority within the rural community who support hunting to “stand together and fight together”.
None of this establishes that political connections played any part in the decision to drop the charges against Heard. But it does illustrate something that has long characterised fox hunting – those who enjoy hunting foxes have rarely been without friends in powerful places.
For illegally hunting the fox, Marles was fined £500 and ordered to pay a further £285 in costs.
This is not Marles’ first visit to court. In 2019, he was convicted of threatening and abusive behaviour with intent to cause harassment, alarm or distress following an incident in which a female saboteur from Devon County Hunt Saboteurs was struck and injured with his riding crop and had some property stolen. The wording of the conviction belies the viciousness of the attack, in which she suffered a bruised liver and had to be airlifted to hospital.
Unfortunately, the conviction was overturned on appeal. The judge said Marles was acquitted because the public order offence with which he had been charged was ultimately the wrong offence, and that he should have been charged with robbery.
Marles has also faced two further illegal-hunting allegations that did not result in convictions. One, from February 2026, also involved Heard; another became time-barred after investigating officers failed to bring charges within the six-month statutory time limit.
Marles was due to leave Britain for New Zealand that same week, and told the court he intended to remain there for five years. Our gain, is of course, New Zealand’s loss.
The other man identified at the rubble where the fox had taken refuge was Tom Bounsall, a terrier man who splits his time between the Eggesford Hunt and the Spooners & West Dartmoor Hunt.
Marles was not the only Eggesford hunter before Exeter Magistrates’ Court that day. While Bounsall faced no action over his role in digging at the rubble hiding the fox, he was convicted over two separate incidents involving hunt saboteurs.
In November 2025, while out with the Eggesford Hunt, Bounsall reversed his quad towards a female sab from Devon County Hunt Saboteurs, striking her. He was convicted of careless driving.
Then, in January 2026, while out with the Spooners & West Dartmoor Hunt, Bounsall aggressively confronted a sab from Plymouth and West Devon Hunt Sabs. District Judge Stuart Smith convicted him of intentional disorderly behaviour.
The two convictions left Bounsall a grand total of £2,185 worse off, in fines and court fees.
Spooners, having apparently discovered an empty barrel of talent, appear to have scraped the bottom of it, and have since promoted Bounsall to Deputy Chairman.
A Hunt Saboteurs Association spokesperson said:
“While we welcome these convictions, the sentences are pathetic. A £500 fine for a rich man’s “sport” is laughable. Once again, extraordinary leniency is afforded to fox hunters, people who have always enjoyed friends in powerful places.
This case demonstrates exactly why the incoming ban on so-called “trail hunting” is so desperately needed. More than 20 years after the Hunting Act came into force, hunts are still chasing and killing foxes and hiding behind the trail-hunting smokescreen, while their powerful friends take to the media to urge the government to renege on their manifesto promise to ban it”
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