The truth about how much hunts actually care about the animals in their care is made crystal clear in these meeting minutes by disgraced director of the MFHA Mark Hankinson:
“Mark Hankinson reported on the Kennel Visit programme. He expressed concern about the number of cases where hounds had been disciplined by the huntsman, which had been witnessed by volunteers/helpers/ hunt supporters and the huntsman’s actions had been misconstrued. Those handling hounds must be aware of what their actions appear to an outside observer.”
The phrase “outside observer” seems an odd choice of words for people who are “volunteers/helpers/ hunt supporters“
Going down through the minutes and we can see at point 6: “A Strictly Confidential document on Dealing with Saboteurs (Benjamin Mancroft and Simon Roberts)”
We have already revealed the two page document, page 1 & page 2, in our piece on how Ex-Royal Marines were drafted in to stop hunt sabs, a costly mistake which saw the firm Matrix fail dismally at stopping anti hunt activists. But what wasn’t revealed previously is how Mancroft is at the very front of this spying operation which involved numerous hunts feeding information back to a private security company.
At point 7 there is the Memorandum of Understanding, between the Hunting Office and the Countryside Alliance, this document outlines who has responsibility for different aspects of hunting. Which includes gathering intelligence on anti hunt activists using hunts to gather that information, something which is entirely illegal and the basis of why Hunting Leaks exists, for as long as the spying continues, we shall continue publishing internal hunting documents.
What hope does the future of hunting actually have, when the 2017 election disaster for the tories is blamed on fox hunting?
“Concerns were expressed that there was no longer a relationship with ‘Number 10’ nor CCHQ. The Chairman was keen to renew these relationships and would liaise with Nick Herbert. It was highly unlikely that Hunting would feature in a Conservative manifesto, not least as many Conservative MPs blamed hunting (quite incorrectly) for the disappointing election result in 2017.”
Of course we found out just what the MFHA thinks of Nick Herbert when he isn’t in the room, a year later they said this about him:
“Nick Herbert has said what Andrew Osborne wants to hear about a strategy in Westminster, but he never comes up with it”
Full meeting minutes here:
