SURREY CONSTABULARY PUTTING THE CUNTS BACK IN THE CUNTRYSIDE (Thats countryside alliance to me and to you)

SATURDAY 6 NOVEMBER 2004

A small Group of Sabs arrive in Surrey, its early and the group plan to open an artificial earth and release the fox thus disrupting the hunt before it begins. We are met by Surrey police force who inform us that the Hunt have cancelled. The reason given is that Surrey cannot provide officers to protect the hunt as they are overstretched due to the pressures of bonfire night. the hunt believes their presence to be necessary as they feared retaliation from the sabs who were the victims of violence by the hunt members the previous week.(  http://WWW.huntsabs.org article 31/10/04)

Having problems accepting this story we set of along the footpath to our target, the artificial earth, young fox cubs are bought to live here, before being used in the hunt; We are followed by three officers who photograph our actions Tire tracks in the field indicate that we are to late and the earth has already been visited. A concrete slab which conceals an entrance to the earth is resting against the bushes and the fox is no longer there. We return disheartened and find our driver who remained with the vehicle has already received a producer; Members of our group see Mark Bycroft the head of the Old Surrey and Burstow & West Kent Hunt, exercising his horse and it does appear that for once the police have got it right and the hunt has been cancelled.

We now head for the Sussex and the South Down Hunt. Unsurprisingly Surrey police follow us, 4 vehicles surely thats a convoy in anyones criminal justice act, but they persist even when we cross into the next county. The police continue to trail us throughout Sussex and we realise they are staying for the duration. Constant police surveillence an ever pervasive presence that encroaches upon the group. The atmosphere changed we knew we were being harrassed, observed and recorded knowing they were waiting for any slip, an excuse to pull us and prevent us from arriving at our destination, keeping it together we drive carefully along the country lanes

Horseboxes and fourwheel drives parked along the verges of the roads indicated we had arrived, you could almost be mistaken in thinking you've arrived at a festie yet the owners of these vehicles are shiny & sleek just like their motors and if not already galloping around the countryside then they are eagerly staring across the fields hoping to catch a glimpse of the hounds chasing a fox across the fields.

Sussex police are nowhere to be found, but dont worry the Surrey force are here in sussex to protect the hunt. (We wonder how there overstretched colleagues are coping in their own county) and they begin a similar pattern of harrassment of another grp of sabs we have linked up with. They threaten to impound their van due to a problem with the lights. Sussex police finally arrive but thanks to a nifty bit of autoelectrics the problem is solved and we continue with a police escort.

We drive in circles around the lanes trying to catch up with the hunt, misinformation and delays ensures this does not happen immediately. Finally the correct information comes through and we spy a lone rider in a red jacket, the hounds are chasing across the field, the other team of sabs in black are visible on foot running across the field. Remaining in the landrover we follow the map coming out on the other side of the field just as the hunt arrives.

The hunt master and his 5 cronies in red are spaced evenly around the edge of a small piece of woodland, the pack is searching the woods trying to pick up the trail, there is an errie silence as we all wait, they are 'drawing the covert' We begin distraction tatics to confuse the hounds, but quickly a land owner appears and with that age old cry demands we get of her land. When questioned she states that she doesn't want the hunt on her land either, I wonder if she would have been so quick to complain if we had not been there.

The huntsmen call of their hounds and we move into a field, where the rest of the hunt has been waiting for the action to begin. This strange mix of hunters & sabs. mixing in this field on this stark november day we watch each other, two distinct groups checking out each other waiting for the next move. Walking through these riders listerning to their alien accents discussing the hunt so far I begin to wonder who was this majority that wanted to preserve our right to hunt with dogs, that cuntryside alliance spoke so passionately for. These riders from the upper regions of our society, a world away from that which I inhabit. The women and adolescent girls, wearing only the finist designer riding gear, (not a baggy pair of jodhpurs in sight.) were immaculately presented: one would never have guessed they had been hunting all morning. Whilst the men took on that archaic role of the english landed gent, I felt as though I had stepped back in time yet this was reality. Everywhere I looked I saw cuntryside alliance and their fight to prevent the ban. One horse proudly dislplayed No Ban on its rump, shaved into its hair, like the Nike ticks that graced kids heads four or five years ago, lets hope it take less time for us to recognise the corruptness of this slogan

In the distance the buzzing of a helicopter becomes audiable, we all look to the sky in disbelief surely this is not for our benefit, we take a head count, there are only 14 of us. Police reinforcements have arrived we are seriously outnumbered. The men in red jackets confer and the main body of the hunt is led away the dogs remain. The police begin to swamp us and we try to leave, crossing into another field it is impossible to follow the hunt, and from this point on we face persistant harassment from the old bill. We are threatened with possible arrest for aggravated trespass, and are informed that a s.60 order is being sought. Leaving the field by the footpath to rendez-vous with our ride we are met by the police. At this instant an unmanned horse bolts and is seen charging up the road. The police stop and confront us again, angry that we have been in the field, even though we are stood next to a public footpath. We suggest that their time might be better spent catching the horse and preventing a possible incident but they continue to harass us. We drive on and are now followed by a high tec CCTV vehicle that has been capturing our every move. The bright yellow vehicle mockingly displays the phrase, 'Smile your on CCTV camera', on its roof a bobbing white eye transmiting footage of us to the gadget laiden interior.

The police keep us from the hunt with another producer refusing to accept he two we have already collected that day. When we move on we receive a message that the hunt has corned a fox in the garden of a large private house. We are only 200m away and followers of the hunt guide us to it. There are perhaps 10 to 15 cars parked alongs the roadside which although looks private is marked upon the O.S. Map as public, We drive carefully through the spectators who are cranning for a view of the fox and the hounds. A father places a toddler upon the roor of his off roader for a better view of the action, as though a summer parade was passing, not the cruel and barbaric destruction of a wild animal, fortunately though one only classified as vermin.

At the side of a house is a public footpath and thankfully we can run on this piece of land without breaking any laws to try and distract the hounds. It is bizarre the fox is in the large garden of a privately owned house. Six huntsmen and 40 dogs are chaotically running through the garden, even swimming in the pond, the fox is saved but we turn around to find yet again that the police have followed us.

At last they have obtained a section 60 and one sab member who has refused to remove his scarf until such a time, is suddenly surrounded. He removes the scarf but continues to question the validity of the order. The officer in charge is still unable to specify an exact location for this section & refuses to elaborate and we withdraw sickened by the consistent heavy handed approach of the police.

By now the hunt has begun to disband, they have not caught a fox and there fun was disrupted by very few sabs.

Although we witnessed various road traffic infringements accompanied by consistant abuses of the CJB by huntsmen and their followers, the police failed to take any action or even express concerns to that group. It was obvious to all that the police are "servants of the hunt" and there presence ensures that this barbaric bloodsport is able to continue.allowing participants to ride roughshod over laws that the police use to persecute and harrass activists accross the country.

The issue of Fox hunting is still very much at the forefront of political debate as we know the government have failed to carry out their pledge to outlaw hunting with dogs and many people have become complacent. Countryside alliance meanwhile are growing stronger each day perverting the real issues hijacking any event to gain publicity for their cause. Trying to convince us that this ban is an infringement of our our civil liberties, the removal of our english heritage. It is not, it is a sick and cruel bloodsport of which there is no real justification. Sabbing dispels all the myths and untruths regarding foxhunting, sabs need support although even with such tiny numbers we still have an impact.