Gyrocopter Murder charge

Jasmine | 11.03.2009 21:49 | SHAC | Animal Liberation

A man has been charged with the murder of hunt supporter Trevor Morse who was killed in a collision with a gyrocopter.

Sorry for the repost of Sky:-

Gyrocopter

The scene of the collision at Long Marston airfield, Warwickshire

Warwickshire Police said the man would appear before Nuneaton Magistrates Court tomorrow accused of killing the 48-year-old.

Mr Morse died after he was hit by the aircraft at Long Marston airfield near Stratford-Upon-Avon as he followed a hunt on Monday afternoon.

Two people were arrested on suspicion of murder following the incident, which happened just after 3pm.

The second man was released on bail tonight pending further police inquiries.

A police spokesman said: "Two men were arrested at the scene and have been in custody at Leamington Spa police station.

"One man has tonight been charged with murder.

"The second man has been released on police bail pending further inquiries."

A post-mortem examination carried out at the University Hospital of Coventry and Warwickshire revealed that Mr Morse died as a result of severe head injuries.

Hunt master Sam Butler paid tribute to Mr Morse, who was from Alderminster, near Stratford.

"He was a very great supporter, a passionate believer in country sports and hunting and the tribute I pay is not only to him but to his family," he said.

Long Marston airfield, an RAF base between 1941 and 1954, is now home to the Avon Microlight club, Freedom Sports Aviation, and the Shakespeare County Raceway Dragstrip.

The site is also well-known for dance festival Global Gathering and the Bulldog Bash motorbike show

Jasmine

Comments

Hide the following 17 comments

BBC

11.03.2009 22:22

Man on gyrocopter murder charge

A man has been charged with the murder of a hunt supporter who was killed when he was hit by a gyrocopter at an airfield in Warwickshire.

Trevor Morse, 48, from Alderminster, Warwickshire, died at the scene of the incident at Long Marston airfield near Stratford-upon-Avon on Monday.

A man is due before magistrates in Nuneaton on Thursday, police said.

A second man arrested on suspicion of murder has been released on police bail while inquiries continue.

The two men were arrested at the airfield at the time of the incident, at about 1500 GMT.

In a statement police said: "Two men were arrested at the scene and have been in custody at Leamington Spa police station.

"One man has tonight been charged with murder.

"The second man has been released on police bail pending further inquiries."

A post mortem-examination carried out at the University Hospital of Coventry and Warwickshire revealed Mr Morse died from severe head injuries.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/coventry_warwickshire/7937895.stm

Danny

Court reports

11.03.2009 23:39

Before planning anything else, someone has to attend the court and report back here. The particular group should be wary of reaching out to new friends it has no use of but we need the facts.

a waste of peoples time

12.03.2009 00:39

It seems almost impossible that a charge of murder will stick for this. How can the pigs prove intent to murder? Even an accident - manslaughter - is totally unlikely given the facts we have all heard.

It is a real shame someone has to go through all this palava though - name associated with murder, lose job, possibly lose friends, stress, etc etc..... The class war is dead? I think not.

Krop

Indymedia used in court

12.03.2009 01:05

With regards to it being used in court, evidence from Indymedia was used against the Sequani 6. They were reclaiming their expenses after being found innocent, however a posting on indymedia stating that activists were funding the defendants meant that in the end they didn't get a penny and were left out of pocket. The judge declared the evidence admissible and challenged the defendants to prove that the posting was not true.

There have been others cases too, but that's the one that came to mind.

Evidence

ploy

12.03.2009 09:07

standard police tactic to get someone to admit to a lesser charge.
lock them up and offer them a key out, for a price of course.

dave

Hunt violence

12.03.2009 11:15

I can understand why a hunt monitor would resort to flying. There have been so many incidents of hunt monitors being violently attacked, even old ladies aren't exempt from the aggression of these blood thirsty barbarians. I'm not suprised they took to the air. The notion of attacking someone with one of these machines is farcical. Surely they are dangerous enough without hitting a person deliberately. It's lucky they weren't all killed. I suspect this hunt supporter went running at the thing to stop it. These thugs have little fear and little brains.

Ruby

Does anybody know the reason? (the arguement for "mureder")

12.03.2009 12:40

Kind of silly for us to argue about this without having much in the way of facts reported.

WHY a "murder" charge? Are there any of the various circumstances which can make ANY death regardless of fault or intent into murder?

I am of course not up on your laws. But over here, any death that results as a direct result of a felony is an automatic murder charge. No need to prove premeditation or intent on the death, just on the underlying felony.

For example -- whose copter? Over here, if you hot wired a car and while driving away were in an accident and somebody died then YOU can get charged with murder. If you are robbing a bank and a patron inside at the time drops dead from a heart attack you can get charged with murder. Not necessarily resulting in conviction but that's for the jury to decide. Understand? It's not the intent to kill that matters but the intent to commit the felony and whether the resulting death gets judged "proximate" enough.

PLEASE -- I am not in this saying that the legal doctrine making any death in the course of a felony "murder" is a good idea -- just that's what (our) legal tradition says.

MDN

Still Not In America!

12.03.2009 13:11

A few points to the comment above:
We aren't in America,so American laws don't apply
The gyrocopter wasn't stolen and it was being used to
collect evidence to prove that hunts are still slaughtering
innocent wildlife, even though we have a ban on hunting in this country.
Please stop telling us about how American law would affect this!

FUCK THE HUNT!

Vegan Anarchist

using gyrocopters to monitor hunts is a great idea!

12.03.2009 13:13

this looks like a terrible accident. i'm sure that the ones charged are in shock, after all, seeing someone get decapitated and then be put on a murder charge is hard to imagine. there are so many scenarios that could be imagined, but it is easy to imagine some crazy hunt supporter so caught up in trying to attack someone, in what is a very dangerous vehicle, coming into contact with the blades. i've seen enough hunt supporters lost in frenzied attacks on sabs to imagine what went on. maybe this will be a warning to frenzied hunt supporter to not attack people in gyrocopters and stick to beating up old ladies and driving over sabs in suv's. using gyrocopters to monitor hunts is a great idea! the league have said that they would not use them, why not?

britches

not here

12.03.2009 13:20

We don't have your medieval legal system, we have our own...

Theres no suggestion here the two hunt sabs/protestors/monitors (not sure which is technically true here) were doing anything wrong by using/refuelling/flying the copter so theres no suggestion of an equivalent to a 'felony'. Quite the reverse, they had good reason to be at the airstrip, the hunt supporter had less or none. In the TV news reports the wording and tone of voice implied it was wrong to fly a copter near hunts like this and the two were possibly up to no good. No solid accusations though.

I think a lot of this discussion would be helped by having some hard facts, like the two videos I think I read the police have of the incident, however in order to ensure a 'fair trial' such details aren't made public so potential jurors enter the courtroom with as few preconcieved ideas about the case as possible.

Hopefully you're all working on a defense fund and perhaps using opportunities like when his lawyers make statments to make the point about the hunt sabs who've been murdered and that these two were actually working to UPHOLD the law against hunting, since the police can't be arsed.

McQn

bizarre response

12.03.2009 16:36

To what I wrote.

Of course it's not the SAME as here (rules about when "accident" are nevertheless "murder"). Your circumstances for that are different than ours. That's why I was asking UPON WHAT is this murder charge being based? Anybody know?

And of course I meant that question in terms of what your rules ARE, not based upon what you think they should be.

I am suggesting that while the police might be "on the other side" and might have placed these charges without much hope of them succeeding they presumably are basing their actions on SOMETHING. Does anybody know that that might be? That seems like a reasonable question to me.

MDN

Re: hunt violence

12.03.2009 17:55

It should be noted that those on the gyrocopter were not engaged in hunt sabotage, they were gathering evidence of potentially illegal hunting, something that the 'proper authorities' have shown themselves unwilling to do.

Ruby is right to refer to "many incidents of hunt monitors being violently attacked". Indeed too many animal advocates have actually been killed by people involved in animal abuse - neither Tony Ball or Alan Summerskill were even arrested at all when Tom Worby and Mike Hill were killed. See

http://violence.redblackandgreen.net/vinar/murdered.html and follow the link to see all the other examples of violence and injustice perpetrated by animal abusers..

Soy

hunt death

12.03.2009 18:37

To offer some perspective to the news of a hunt supporter found pivotal to a violent death.

It’s what they do.

It is thought that avid wildlife killer and hunt heavy Trevor Morse had raced to Warwick airport Monday afternoon March 9 to confront the hunt monitors who had been filming from the air the nefarious activities of the Warwickshire Hunt gang. The two passengers on the gyrocopter were evidence gathering hunt monitors. As the trespasser allegedly advanced on the refuelled aircraft to prevent it from taking off he was advised repeatedly by the safety-trained crew to keep away from the spinning rotor blades. He appears to have ignored these visibly unnecessary warnings and paid with his life. Anyone who has been confronted by these kinds of people will know of their inability to see reason when in a state of frenzy. Extreme violence is so often the outcome.

Bizarrely the pilot of the aircraft 54 year old Bryan Griffiths who was exceptionably eager to keep safely away from hunt supporters while filming their activities has been charged with murder and remanded in custody!

Morse is not the first person to die in the killing fields of England in recent years. Usually the hunters do the killing and the saboteurs try to intervene and can pay a heavy price. In 1976 William Sweet was gunned down by a blood sport fanatic. In 1993 15 year old Tom Worby was killed by huntsman Tony Ball in the Cambridgeshire countryside. Mike Hill was 18 in 1991 when Cheshire huntsman Alan Summersgill killed him. None of the assailants were so much as arrested for murder. There was little media coverage. No one was held in custody and threatened with life in prison or charged with anything! The murders of three peace loving youngsters remain unsolved. Many other violent attacks on anti hunt protesters by hunt supporters remain either un-investigated or unsolved.

The response to this death of someone thought to be engaged in a violent criminal conspiracy should be the immediate enforcement of the Hunting Act. It must not be used as an excuse to impede hunt monitors investigating these violent criminal gangs. Public citizens should not have to risk their lives collecting evidence of criminal activity when others are paid to do this job. Four years after the law was passed many hunts have publicly stated their intention to continue breaking it by massacring wild animals and spitting in the face of the majority of UK citizens.

It’s time the violence and intimidation stopped.

Patrick Moore speaks out over the lack of action on illegal hunting:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/the_daily_politics/7936812.stm

keith mann

keith
mail e-mail: puppypincher@yahoo.co.uk
Homepage: http://www.fromdusktildawn.org.uk

Well said Keith

13.03.2009 09:26

Even on the Horse and Hound site forums hunt supporters are asking WHY Morse was on an airfield and approching the aircraft. Even the hunt described it as an accident I bet they could not believe their luck when Bryan was charged with murder. As someone who has known hundreds of hunt supporters and hundreds of animal rights activists over the last 25 years I know only too well which side wins the most violent competition, overwhelmingly and it is not animal rights activists. It certainly is not hunt monitors who will not interfere in any way with the hunt or do anything illegal.
Let us look at the facts only on a very few occassions over nearly 50 years of hunt sabotage have sabs outnumbered hunters. It is generally the case that sabs are outnumbered 2 to 1 on a good day, sometimes the numbers are 100 to 1. Even the hardest barstad would find it a bit of a problem to use violence as a first line of action with these stakes unless s/he is Rambo, and suitably armed. Pragmatism often dictates the run away very fast tactic or trying to talk down the leader of "lads" when the run away approach is blocked by horses, quad bikes, big blokes with assorted implements and a tractor are the best methods.

Lynn sawyer

@ MDN

13.03.2009 12:31

Any 'reason' for the arrest would just be pure speculation; I don’t think any of us could think of a lawful reason for the arrest at all. As I understand it they were going about their lawful business and an accident happened.

Avoidable Accident

Apart from discussion of what is in the mainstream media

13.03.2009 12:42

it is probably a bad idea to discuss anything specific to the case. Pointing out holes in the prosecution case will lead to them being rectified. We have got to be very careful about what we say and what we think we know. Maybe we should agree not to put anything up unless it is to do with prison support with the permission of the arrestees or general stuff about hunts and sabs, previous cases etc. Furthermore police and media are watching, anything said here could be used.
This is now being treated as murder case. The police could start trying to question animl rights people in general or at least those who may or not be associates of the arrestees. Anyone who does know about (or thinks they do) who, what, where etc should guard it closely even from close friends and family. The hunting fraternity are also interested in getting this info and will use it to track people down. We need to be VERY vigilant.

Lynn Sawyer

Protect Our Wild Animals Statement

13.03.2009 13:32

"12th March 2009, POWA statement on fatality at Long Marston, Warwickshire

The incident which took place at Long Marston on Monday 9th March was a tragedy.

We send our condolences to the family of the deceased."

From

http://www.powa.org.uk/

Wild Animals