In March 2026 the BBC reported that ministers had declared a national emergency in response to the epidemic of violence against women and girls. The report also stated that “the UK government has pledged to halve violence against women and girls within a decade.”
Violence, misogyny and sexism have always been prominent within the hunting community, with overwhelming cases against female hunt saboteurs. We recently shared a series of social media posts highlighting this – but the sad fact is that there are still hundreds more instances that could have been shared. For example, after sabs scuppered a days hunting for the Northern Counties Mink Hounds, Charles Dent viciously targeted a female sab, causing damage to her head and neck.
In November 2024 a lone female sab from Mendip Hunt Sabs was thrown to the ground and repeatedly punched in the head and kicked while she lay on the ground. The frenzied attack took place after the sab had gone to investigate a suspected dig out of a fox by the Mendip Hunt terrier men. As well as physically assaulting the sab the thugs stole her camcorder and body camera. Avon & Somerset Police took no further action, despite them claiming in their framework that violence against women and girls is a “forcewide priority.”
Over the past few seasons West Midlands Hunt Saboteurs (WMHS) have been documenting worrying and disturbing behaviour from hunt supporter Harry Sawyer. At the beginning of last season, he pushed a female saboteur, who was holding a placard, to the ground. The same saboteur that he has repeatedly harassed and attempted to intimidate by following her to the toilet and making false accusations about her to Warwickshire police, wasting their time.
In February 2026, Sawyer purposely blocked WMHS vehicle on a public road. He then proceeded to assault a female sab by pushing her in the back before grabbing her arm and twisting it up her back. When asked a few weeks later if he thought women constitute as people, he struggled to muster a coherent answer.
Around a year ago Warwickshire Police said this in response to the national report on Violence Against Women and Girls,
“Violence against women and girls (VAWG) is an unacceptable, preventable issue that blights the lives of many, and we have always taken it seriously in Warwickshire.”
In 2024 Simon Tomlinson, polo enthusiast, Beaufort landowner and friend of King Charles, viciously threw a female sab to the ground. This is the same Simon Tomlinson who had previously been handed a community resolution by Wiltshire Police for driving a quad bike at sabs on a public right of way.
In 2023 Wiltshire Police announced their plans to improve the way they respond to violence against women and girls with their initiative entitled ‘Listening Circles.’ This was forged from feedback whereby almost 50% of women asked said they didn’t report a crime of violence against them as they felt they would not be taken seriously, or because of past experiences with the police. Despite this feedback and Tomlinson’s history of erratic violence, Wiltshire Police did not charge him for the attack on the female sab.
Just last week Fred Ford, a rider with the Blackmore & Sparkford Vale Hunt (BSV) was found guilty of assault by beating. Ford, who is a regular rider with the BSV, Portman Hunt and the Devon & Somerset Staghounds, pinned a female sab to a gate while she was trying to access a public footpath.
Even when the sab was on the phone to the police Ford continued to tighten his grip on her, until another sab was able to intervene. Furthermore, Fred’s son Charlie Ford, who is the huntsman for the Dorset & Somerset Bassetts, was recently found guilty of illegally hunting a hare. It appears that violence is a family tradition for the Ford’s.
The HSA recently reported on the Albrighton & Woodland Hunt huntsman Paul Larby, and whipper in Phillipa Ward, who viciously attacked a Shropshire Wildlife Monitor in an unprovoked attack, leaving her eye severely swollen and bruised. The seemingly endless list of these kinds of attacks from hunters towards female sabs keeps increasing season after season.
The volume of physical attacks reported on are shocking and deeply worrying, and this does not include incidents of verbal abuse where sexualised, misogynistic and threatening language is used to try and intimidate sabs, although this does also come hand in hand with physical attacks.
For example, the attack by Cottesmore Hunt steward and butcher Gwilym Owen, who body-slammed a female sab to the floor then proceeded to stand over her whilst she knelt in the mud trying to get up. Another hunt member, Dean Cripps looked on laughing, whilst commenting that “Gwilym looks as though he’s enjoying being pleasured over there”. When the sab got back to her feet she was then thrown back down onto the floor.
The very nature of hunting is violent and sadistic and as we’ve seen recently from footage at the Coniston Foxhounds dig-out and the Stowe Beagles hare kill, young people, quite often children, are present at these hunts, exposing them to and normalising violence. Furthermore, the misogynistic language used towards female sabs, which is often laughed at by other hunt members, makes it appear acceptable to speak to women in this manner, setting a precedent for the younger generation.
In response to a recent document collated by the HSA in relation to violence against female saboteurs author Carol J Adams gave the following statement;
“Some of the thug-like actions against women hunt saboteurs remind me of the behaviour of ICE agents in the United States. These immigration agents, militarized under Trump into lawless action, have mostly escaped prosecution for attacking protestors. Like ICE agents, hunters and their supporters use misogynistic language when referring to women (‘cunt,’ ‘bitch,’etc). Sociological studies of violence suggest that objectifying language helps to create distance between the attacker and the victim, enabling them to see women as less than human.”
‘Trail hunting’ does not exist, but what does is the sickening violence within this community. Whether it is towards animals; wildlife, hounds and horses, or towards other people.
There is a widely recognised correlation between those who abuse animals going onto commit violent offences against humans, with animal abuse being cited as an indicator of future violent offending.
In a world where wildlife is hounded, hunted and torn apart, often in the presence of children and young people, violence towards humans comes hand in hand. ‘Trail’ hunting is not only a smokescreen for illegal hunting; it continues to facilitate the violence that hunts inflict upon those exposing it and stopping it.
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