Support Sabs with Court Costs

CORRUPT POLICING AND LIES SEE SABS FOUND GUILTY FOR TRYING TO SAVE GAME BIRDS

Two of our sabs were found "guilty" for aggravated trespass this week and handed 2 year conditional discharges, £3500 in costs and compensation and 2 year restraining orders for disrupting a shoot where they were shooting at pheasants out of season.

Shooters continued to shoot over the head of a sab yet they still decided to called the police. This came after sabs had packed up the same shoot a few days previously for the same reason. On this occasion the shoot continued whilst the bloodsport enthusiasts and police alike made up tall tales of sab's behaviour.

The judge in the case acknowledged there was no evidence at all to suggest that sabs had acted violently to try to shut down the shoot... Funnily enough, the police body cam evidence which could have helped support our sabs case was not presented by the prosecution to trial, despite our requests.

The evidence they did choose to present, taken by one of the beaters in fact showed shooters not breaking their guns and continuing to shoot from as little as 3 meters away over a sab's head despite clear gun safety laws prohibiting this.

Earlier that week a shoot organiser and gamekeeper had told a member of the public that they were shooting pheasants which at this time of the season would in fact be illegal. She claimed in court she "misspoke due to the stress of climbing a stile".

The judge asked why the sabs hadn't raised their concerns on the day to the officers on the scene, which they did but guess which body cam footage wasn't present... yes you guessed it, both officers BWV footage that showed sabs telling them exactly this.

Police on the scene weren't interested in the law and one officer even arrested a sab for the civil case of trespass (yet again all on missing body camera footage). After contacting a supervisor they then de-arrested the sab and re-arrested them for aggravated trepass.

Like a massive baby in court, the shoot owner Matthew Nesbitt attempted to win claims of over 11k by claiming he had to reimburse shooters over the embarrassment of being sabbed and that the sabs should also pay for the supper for the shoot that day. Thankfully this nonsense was dismissed, however in large part due to the inept and corrupt police and "missing" evidence supporting our sabs claim that they had reason to believe the shoot were operating illegally.

All members of Staffordshire Hunt Sabs are volunteers and massive costs to the group like this seriously hamper our efforts to do what we do to save wildlife for the rest of the season.