Surveillance and the CPS

Countryside Alliance Chief Executive Tim Bonner writes: Lee Martin, an employee of the Middleton hunt, was yesterday successful at York Crown Court in his appeal against his conviction for 'interfering with a badger sett'. The case was a classic example of the increasingly questionable tactics of some animal rights charities.

The 'evidence' against Mr Martin was gathered by League Against Cruel Sports (LACS) employees using static cameras and trespassing on private property. Their evidence was, of course, that the hole in the ground Mr Martin was accused of interfering with was an active badger sett. It was their evidence and that of an 'expert' from a badger group that persuaded the CPS to bring a prosecution and magistrates in Scarborough to convict.

To anyone looking at the evidence objectively without a very clear vested interest in a prosecution being brought, however, there was little, if anything, to suggest that the hole was an active badger sett. In the Crown Court the prosecutions 'expert' had to accept this and the judge took little time to overturn the conviction. Whatever LACS would like, fox control remains absolutely legal.

We are obviously very pleased for Mr Martin but there are two wider points which the authorities have to address over prosecutions such as this. The first is how the CPS considers the evidence of paid 'investigators' with a vested interest in charges being brought. Such evidence should not, and cannot, be considered in the same way as the evidence of a properly neutral witness. The second is the continuing relationship between such 'investigators' and the police especially where they are involved in sophisticated covert surveillance operations which the police themselves could not lawfully carry out.

Until these issues are properly resolved cases like Mr Martin's will continue to waste court time and taxpayers' money.

Follow Tim on Twitter @CA_TimB