Today we continue our look at Police and Crime Commissioners (PCCs) and their approach to fox hunting.

As we outlined on Monday the majority of PCCs are Conservative. In their most recent manifesto (November 2019) the party stated that “We will make no changes to the Hunting Act.” (The bold type is theirs.) Prior to this there had been a commitment for the Conservatives to repeal The Hunting Act 2004 and therefore it was reasonable to assume that individuals representing them would follow this line and might support repeal. Now, of course they would be expected to follow the manifesto promise.

Although they have no control over operational matters PCCs are able to set budgets and policing priorities within the law and to appoint and dismiss Chief Constables. This gives them considerable influence over what importance should be given to less ‘headline’ matters such as fox hunting.

We have found evidence of eight PCCs who have past or present connections to hunts or have shown support for fox hunting. This is perfectly reasonable in a democratic society and there is no suggestion of any wrongdoing. It is interesting however to note that the supporters of fox hunting are keen to suggest that those who oppose it should not be allowed to be involved in enforcement. This would seem to suggest a ‘double standard’.

As hunting with dogs is now illegal with certain exceptions, any PCCs currently having connections to hunts will of course primarily be associating themselves with the legal activity of ‘trail hunting’. However in situations where individual hunts or national hunting organisations are seen to be involved in breaches of the law it would seem appropriate for PCCs to publicly distance themselves from those individual hunts or organisations.

If the appeal in the case of Mark Hankinson who was convicted of intentionally encouraging or assisting others to commit an offence under the Hunting Act 2004, contrary to Section 44 of the Serious Crimes Act 2007 is rejected then we would expect any PCCs previously showing support for ‘trail hunting’ to distance themselves rapidly and publicly from that position. If the conviction is upheld we look forward to the response from all PCCs and in particular from those eight mentioned above who we are not naming, for now.