Farmers praised in hare-coursing case


17 December 2001



Farmers praised in hare-coursing case

By Tom Allen-Stevens

FARMERS in Oxfordshire have been praised for their help, following the convictions of a gang of illegal hare coursers.

Last week 15 of a group of 21 arrested in September were fined 5775 at Didcot Magistrates Court. Three of them were ordered to forfeit their vehicles.

The convictions have been celebrated as a resounding success for the local rural neighbourhood watch scheme, codenamed Operation Migrate.

“I honestly dont believe illegal hare coursers have ever received such penalties before,” said PC Pete Hale, who runs the scheme.

“The whole thing hinges on information from farmers and other members of the rural community. Without them were on a hiding to nothing.”

Under the scheme, information about the suspect gang was passed to a ring of farmers and gamekeepers via fax.

The group had been working in the South Stoke area, east of Wallingford, when local farmers tipped off the police, who swooped in and made the arrests.

Illegal hare-coursing is most common in large, open arable areas, with gangs driving through freshly-planted crops over very large areas of countryside.

“One gang came through last year when the ground was at its wettest, zig-zagging right from one end of the farm to the other,” one Oxfordshire farmer told FWi.

“They made a real mess of one oilseed rape field and then smashed through a fence. If you try to approach them, they threaten you.”

At the height of the foot-and-mouth epidemic, other gangs from infected areas came through the farm, which includes a pig-fattening unit, he said.

There are also reports in the area of damage to farm vehicles, but police say that convictions are rare because farmers are too frightened to speak out.

But a spate of convictions since Operation Migrate was set up last year has drawn interest from a number of police forces in Essex, Sussex and Gloucestershire.

The final six members of the gang are due to appear in court in February next year.

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