At long last, charges have been issued against members of a stag hunt.
Avon and Somerset Police have charged Quantock Staghounds hunt master Chris Gibbons and huntsman Martin Watts with illegally hunting a wild mammal with dogs in relation to an incident on March 16, 2026.
Watts faces a further charge relating to a separate incident on April 23, 2026.
Both men are to appear in Taunton Magistrates’ Court on October 22, 2026 to answer the charges.
The charges follow what was, for a stag hunt, an ordinary day in March, when hunt saboteurs from Mendip Hunts Sabs and North Dorset Hunt Sabs were in attendance and recorded events as they unfolded.
The stag was first seen by sabs at around noon. It would be almost six o’clock before the day was over and the stag was dead.
For more than five hours sabs documented the pursuit as the animal repeatedly fled. Quads, hunters on horseback, hounds and even motorbikes were involved as the stag attempted to escape.
It is difficult to comprehend what five hours of pursuit actually means for the animal. Deer are not endurance runners, prolonged exertion can cause severe physiological stress and overheating, and exhausted deer often enter rivers or streams during or following a pursuit.
Spring stag hunting takes place from early March until late April. Younger stags without the heavy antlers and greater body mass they develop later in the year, have historically been prized by stag hunters for the speed of the chase.
It is the pursuit itself, the flight of the wild animal turned into entertainment for bloodthirsty baying hunters.
Eventually after a gruelling five-hour pursuit the exhausted stag was trapped against a fence line with a sab on the other side.
The image of the stag was haunting. His jaw was bloodied and visibly deformed, his eyes bulging and blood pouring from his nose. His body was cut and gashed after hours of desperate flight across the landscape.
What the sabs witnessed that day has left a mental scar, while the haunting video they managed to record has also stayed with many who have watched it.
As one sab desperately begged for the exhausted and injured stag to be left alone, hunters laughed as they raced past with the gun, demonstrating the stark contrast between the compassion of the sab pleading for mercy, and the barbarity of the hunters frothing and chewing at the bit to get their kill.
Soon after, the stag was dead.
Watts’ second charge relates to an incident on April 23, 2026 during the Quantock Staghounds’ closing meet at Bagborough.
Hunting Act exemptions are subject to specific conditions, such as having permission to be on the land they are on.
The hunt was filmed by monitors from Wildlife Guardian hunting a young stag through Triscombe Quarry, a dangerous working quarry, which sabs say they had no permission to enter.
This time, unlike the stag pursued on March 16, he escaped alive. Eventually making his way into New Ground, a League Against Cruel Sport sanctuary.
The Quantock Staghounds are no strangers to seeing one of their huntsmen before the courts. Former QSH huntsman, Richard Down, was convicted in 2007 after hunting a deer for more than an hour. He was convicted again in 2010 for hunting a wild mammal with more than two dogs.
Down, who was still huntsman of the Quantock Staghounds at the time, became the first huntsman to be convicted twice under the Hunting Act.
An HSA spokesperson said:
“These charges are a testament to the extraordinary dedication of the hunt saboteurs and monitors who spend countless hours in the field documenting what happens at stag hunts.
The Hunting Act must be strengthened to remove the exemptions, loopholes and excuses that hunts rely on to get away with the traditional hunting of wildlife with dogs.
This stag was chased for more than five-hours. We have been waiting 22 years for the law to catch up”.
You can support Mendip Hunt Sabs here and North Dorset Hunt Sabs here.
Support our vital work by becoming a member.
We are the only organisation that works directly in the field to save wildlife through direct action.
