What do you do when you’re the Hunting Office and the number of sabs is increasing every season?
Call in the military! or in the case a security firm that specialises in events such as festivals:
Matrix
The first document, which you can read here p1 and p2, starts off making a very unusual claim:
Hunt Saboteur Monitors Proposal
“lf the extremist element of the saboteur movement continues to go unchecked it can only be a matter of time before there is a fatality.
This alongside the manipulation of social media and the blatant lies and mistruths being spread is not only completely undermining hunting but the rural establishment it represents and if we fail to act it is impossible to see where it might end up and the sort of social change it might ferment.“
There have already been two fatalities, Mike Hill and Tom Worby, both hunt saboteurs. This document clearly goes on to explain how intel on saboteurs isn’t to prevent crime, but is actually planned to be used so that hunts can be informed in real time if their neighbouring hunt has been visited by sabs:
“Their brief on a day will be to contain the saboteurs legally, protect property, prevent aggravated trespass and evidence gather.
The plan is to have 5 teams in the field based in Yorkshire, the North West, the South West, the Midlands and East Anglia to tackle on a day individual hits and follow the Saboteur movements if from one Hunt to another. Key to the success of this will be knowing where the groups of Saboteurs are going on a day. This is part of the plan and will all need coordinating by one individual.
ln broad terms the costings for this for the coming season I estimate to be £165,000″
The Matrix were employed, but they failed to make much impact on hunt saboteurs so their ongoing employment was terminated, however the planning behind the matrix scheme is worth further investigation, especially as a number of anti hunt activists are now making GDPR claims against the Countryside Alliance and the Hunting Office.
Not only do we have that internal document from the within the Hunting Office, we also have their minutes from November 2019.
There is a lot of effort and money going into spying on sabs, not just Matrix, but also private investigation companies, it is ridiculous to pretend that this is acceptable and lawful with current GDPR legislation.
This intelligence gathering, was further outlined later on in the meetings minutes:
You can read the entire Hunting Office meeting minutes here.