Public Order, Private Armies: The Use of Hunt Security in the UK and Ireland

PUBLIC ORDER, PRIVATE ARMIES

The use of hunt security: a report to the Select Committee on Home Affairs

(photo shows a hunt "steward" at the Crawley & Horsham Foxhunt)

Contents

Definition of hunt security

The history of hunt security

Use of violence by hunt security

Reasonable force

The abuse of the law on trespass to suppress legitimate protest

The use of weapons by stewards and security

Military personnel serving as stewards

Surveillance and intelligence gathering

Above and beyond the law

Broader concerns and the need for regulation

Appendix: Case Histories

About this report

This report was initially written as evidence to the House of Commons Select Committe on Home Affairs investigation into private security firms in the UK. The evidence was compiled from statements obtained from local hunt saboteur groups across the UK, collated by the Hunt Saboteurs Association. We have laid out our arguments and concerns in this main document and attached case histories as samples of the areas of concern in the appendix. This evidence is by no means a comprehensive or exhaustive listing of all the many abuses suffered by hunt saboteurs at the hands of hunt security operations; rather it is intended to provide an overview of those areas that have given rise to concern and where intervention and/or regulation would be of benefit.

The appendix contains much of the detail of the types of abuses and often vicious assaults perpetrated by hunt security operatives; although many of the instances are referenced in the text, some are not so it is worth reading as a resource in its own right.

Definition of hunt security

Hunts now employ a variety of personnel, as well as their own volunteers, to carry out "security" related tasks. This means that in examining the role of security personnel at hunts, it is often not desirable, or even possible, to distinguish between paid employees of full-fledged security companies and men simply shipped in for the day. Security firms are ostensibly employed by hunts to fulfil two tasks: that of "stewarding" or "marshalling" the hunt (generally, acting as agents of the landowner to remove protesters from private land where trespass is taking place); and training others to do so. The situation on the ground is rarely as cut and dried as this. Many hunts employ non-security personnel alongside security firms, both carrying out the same function and acting in concert. Others employ security personnel to steward the hunt initially, while simultaneously giving their own employees "on-the-job" training. The security firm is then phased out, or retained in a supervisory capacity, while the work is done by the hunt's employees who may or may not be paid. The situation is no more clear-cut with those employed directly by the hunt: some are hunt followers simply retrained or equipped with armbands to qualify them as "stewards"; others have no connection with the hunt and are simply recruited and paid by the day from a stock of local "hard men". In other cases, the security firm will be used to recruit and train stewards from outside the hunt who will then be employed and controlled directly by the hunt. It is clear, then, that there can be no clear definition of who constitutes a security operative on the basis of their status in relation to the hunt and/or outside firms.

For this reason, we have based our definition on the function being fulfilled, rather than the status of the individual. Where there is clearly an organised force employed to carry out a task such as stewarding we have included these in our evidence, irrespective of whether or not they are actually directly employed by security companies. We have not included evidence of informal "anti-sab" squads or isolated incidences of violence by hunt followers as these are not primarily security-type activities, however difficult it may be to differentiate their actions in practice.

The history of hunt security

Stewards were first used in the autumn of 1992, appearing at various North Yorkshire grouse shoots in August 1992 and then in a high-profile operation at the Northumberland Beagling Festival in September 1992. This latter operation was extensively plugged by the British Field Sports Society (BFSS) both inside the hunting world and to the media as the way forward in dealing with hunt saboteurs. As Nick Herbert, Political Officer for the BFSS, rather sinisterly expressed it, "From now on we're going to start hunting the saboteurs". Both these initial operations were carried out by Estate Management Services (EMS) who subsequently advertised their services in the bloodsports press to hunts and shoots wishing to deal with saboteurs. The operations were roundly hailed by the BFSS as a success, with triumphal articles in the bloodsports press, the Daily Telegraph, and elsewhere, despite the many very obvious abuses committed by security personnel. Even in these early operations, such abuses included blocking public rights of way, verbal and physical attacks and sexual assault.

"From now on, we're going to start hunting the saboteurs"

Nick Herbert, BFSS Political Officer, Mail on Sunday

From then on, security operations sprang up at hunts across the country, some implemented entirely by professional security firms, others using security firms to train local volunteers, others involving little more than hiring local thugs. Right from the start, there was an enormous increase in violence at hunts where stewards were brought in and the HSA monitored with alarm a soaring increase in the number of saboteurs going to hospital after attacks by stewards.

Use of violence by hunt security

From the start the HSA were concerned that stewarding was not being used to meet its ostensible aims but as a quasi-legal cover for hunts to attack and intimidate protesters. The many violent attacks carried out on saboteurs by stewards in the 1992-93 season bore this thesis out. We felt it was more than just coincidence that the first hunts to employ security firms were also some of the most violent hunts in the country: the Bicester with Whaddon Chase Foxhunt; the Chiddingfold, Leconfield and Cowdray Foxhunt; the Essex Foxhunt; the Hampshire Foxhunt; the Hursley Hambledon Foxhunt; and the Surrey Union Foxhunt. None of these hunts were vulnerable victims of saboteur extremism in need of protection from burly security men: on the contrary all had proved themselves more than capable of "taking care" of protesters and if anyone needed protection at these hunts, it was saboteurs! The overall picture is reflected at hunts throughout the country: wherever stewards appear, violent attacks and intimidation are used to create a climate of fear and escalating tension in an attempt to terrify protesters out of the field.

Further evidence was provided by the type of people employed for stewarding operations. Where hunts were employing security firms to provide training to their own stewards, it was noticeable that many of those now renamed "stewards" or "marshals" were already well-known for having a track record of violent attacks on protesters. For example, the Bicester with Whaddon Chase Foxhunt, using a mix of hired security and their own volunteers, felt that Richard Cheshire was eminently suitable for the task of stewarding the hunt despite his criminal record for violence and notorious reputation as a violent hooligan. (Richard Cheshire and his brother were convicted of ABH at Buckingham Magistrates' Court in June 1992 following an attack on three hunt monitors (none of whom were saboteurs) on Boxing Day 1991. The Cheshires and other persons blocked in the monitors' vehicle, turned it over, smashed the windows with a sledgehammer and then dragged the occupants out of the upturned vehicle, beating them severely and smashing their video camera.) Their faith was repaid when in February 1993, while employed as a hunt marshal, he pushed a saboteur under a moving vehicle driven by the hunt terrierman, Michael Smith. Both Cheshire and Smith were jailed for 2 months for this frightening attack and the hunt registered its disapproval of their very serious attempt to maim or possibly worse by welcoming them both back with open arms and keeping Smith's job and tied house open for him.

In those hunts that employed outsiders not specifically attached to security firms, the recruitment policy was no more discriminating. At the Garth & South Berks Foxhunt, a woman was beaten unconscious by a nightclub bouncer employed as a steward; at the Oakley Foxhunt, saboteurs were threatened with a flick-knife by another bouncer acting as a steward. There are many more examples of bouncers or simply pub thugs being employed as stewards by hunts all over the country. The common factor appears to be their experience and use of violence on a regular basis in their everyday lives, which they are happy to transfer to the hunting field for use against anyone who opposes the hunt.

The employment of violent criminals is by no means just restricted to hunts. Many of the "professional" security firms are none too fussy either. RKR Security who are employed by the Chiddingfold, Leconfield and Cowdray Foxhunt boast at least three employees with criminal records, two of whom have convictions for assaulting police officers and one who served a three-year prison sentence for wounding with intent. An interesting case is that of Simon Longworth, now Master of the Old Ampleforth Beagles, who may be said to have a foot in both camps. He is not only a prominent member of the hunting fraternity but has also at various times operated as a security consultant himself. In this latter capacity he has provided and/or arranged the security for many of the operations in the North of England. Not only is Mr Longworth none too fussy about employing convicted violent criminals, he is himself currently on police bail for smashing a woman's teeth while "stewarding" a grouse shoot. When he is not available to conduct operations on the day, his team of violent thugs is commanded by Steven Wilson who has at least two convictions for violence. One of these is for the sort of pub brawling traditionally associated with such hooligans; another is for attacking a TV reporter making a documentary about hunting and protesters.

Reasonable force?

The law allows landowners or their agents to use reasonable force in removing trespassers from private land. Apart from the many instances of deliberate and undisguised violence, there is also grave concern at the number of people sustaining injuries, often serious, while being removed "with reasonable force". These range from the Newcastle woman who had sheep dung forced in her mouth by three men shouting "leave the land" while they pinned her to the ground to the Herts saboteur whose thumb was broken while he was being dragged off land.

The concept of "reasonable force" is routinely abused to provide a cover for violence. Some of these assaults may be spur of the moment attacks, accounted for by stewards going too far and using more force than the law allows. This still does not excuse the use of excessive force, particularly when serious injuries result. In other cases, there is clearly no attempt to remove people from private land and the intent is solely to assault and injure. Saboteurs have suffered broken bones and serious head wounds, been knocked unconscious and put in hospital in attacks by stewards all using the cover of reasonable force. With the best will in the world it is hard to describe a karate kick to the head resulting in a broken jaw as the over-enthusiastic use of the powers granted by law to remove trespassers.

The abuse of the law on trespass to suppress legitimate protest The ostensible purpose of stewards is to remove trespassers from private land, however they are frequently used to deny access to or evict people from public rights of way, roads and other areas to which members of the public including protesters have a right of access. Where any reason is given for this it is this access is being denied because the hunt is in the area. There have been many instances of stewards evicting saboteurs from land on which they had no authority to be themselves, much less to act as agents of the landowner, and even illegally removing saboteurs from land from which the hunt was explicitly banned. A telling example of what happens when he who pays the piper calls the tune is the attack launched by stewards on protesters at the Essex Hunt's Point-to-Point in March 1994. This was not case of hunt saboteurs on private land; these were protesters with banners intending to conduct a peaceful and lawful demonstration who were attacked on a public road by stewards who in at least two cases caused serious injury. The stewards had no power to remove protesters in this instance and we would argue they were not interested in doing so: their sole intent was to prevent any demonstration against or opposition to the hunt's most important fundraising event of the year.

Essex has perhaps seen some of the most blatant examples of the use of stewards to deny access to public rights of way. Many cases are highlighted in the appendix, both from Essex and elsewhere in the country. For now, we will leave the words of an Essex saboteur to speak for themselves. They paint a clear picture of serious low-level abuse quite apart from, but just as serious as, the more dramatic serious assaults mentioned elsewhere and of stewards operating as they see fit.

"Whenever we attend meets of the Essex Hunt, their stewards prevent us from having access to public footpaths and have been doing so since December 1992. This also occurs at the Essex Farmers & Union Hunt. Essex police support them in this and have threatened us with arrest if we try to get past [i.e., proceed along a public right of way]. I believe that so-called "reasonable force" is regularly breached, with stewards grabbing us while they are telling us to leave land rather than allowing us the chance to leave of our own accord [as the law says they must]. On the rare occasions we are given the chance, we are frequently told we are "not moving fast enough" and receive pushes and shoves in the back or are pulled along by our arms. This is also accompanied by kicks and punches, if they think the police are not looking, and whispered threats. The police generally do not concern themselves with such matters and more often than not "don't see" such incidents."

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The use of weapons by stewards and security If, as is claimed, stewards and security operatives are only present to remove trespassers, it is difficult to understand why they are frequently armed with the sort of weaponry more normally associated with gangland thugs, sometimes at the specific instruction of hunts. RKR security operatives at the Chiddingfold, Leconfield and Cowdray Foxhunt attacked saboteurs with weapons including axe handles and iron bars. In December 1993, Dorking police recovered a "small armoury" of weapons from Countrywatch security, including pickaxe handles, lead piping, coshes, high-powered catapults and even a stun-gun! In Dorset a landowner equipped the vehicle carrying his stewards with baseball bats and pitchforks. In Cheshire saboteurs have been repeatedly attacked by stewards armed with iron bars. Saboteurs at other hunts have been threatened with knives; thankfully none have yet been used. The only form of non-military weaponry yet to be used by security against protesters are firearms. We regret to say that it is probably only a matter of time.

Military personnel serving as stewards

"I can tell you people are going to get murdered in their beds, tracer bullets through the window, Belfast rules OK, enough said?" Team leader of Irish Guards acting as security at Chiddingfold Hunt, January 1994

An alarming aspect of hunt security, and one of great concern to the taxpayer, is the increasing evidence of the use of serving military personnel as hunt security. Service personnel from Catterick were deployed at hunts throughout Yorkshire in 1993 and persistent rumours abound (mainly started by hunt sources) of SAS soldiers and/or Marines being used at the Northumberland Beagling Festival. Security employed by EMS at the Surrey Union Hunt in late November 1992, who were involved in a series of violent assaults against saboteurs on footpaths, boasted that they were in the army. The police later confirmed that they were serving members of the Grenadier Guards. Irish Guards from Purbright were deployed alongside regular security employees and hunt stewards at the Chiddingfold, Leconfield and Cowdray Hunt from November 1991 until at least February 1994 and several were involved in assaults on and intimidation of saboteurs. In January 1994, the head of the team of Irish Guards threatened one saboteur "I can tell you people are going to get murdered in their beds, tracer bullets through the window, Belfast rules OK, enough said?"

While it is well-known that many private security firms employ former members of the armed services and the police and intelligence communities, there has always been considerable disquiet about security firms employing serving members of any government body. The use of serving members of the armed forces in any field by private security firms is in itself alarming enough and raises all manner of issues of conflict of interest, but their involvement in violent and criminal acts is beyond the pale.

Surveillance and intelligence gathering

"we have conducted an extensive surveillance operation on them [saboteurs] and have built a file on most of them with photographs, addresses and other details" Brian Pursglove, Estate Management Services, Shooting Gazette, December 1992

Hunts do not just employ security firms to take on saboteurs in the field, they are also used to gather intelligence on the home addresses and private lives of individuals the hunt consider to be leading activists. In 1991 the West Norfolk Foxhunt employed a firm called Home Security to carry out surveillance operations on several protesters from the East Anglia area. More recently, EMS have boasted of their "extensive surveillance" operations against saboteurs and apparently bedeck their office walls with "charts and photographs of known animal rights activists ('bandits') and lists of 'bandit' vehicles" (Horse Review, January 1993). Saboteurs in the London area have reported seeing security personnel they know to be violent "hanging around" their home addresses.

While we appreciate that intelligence gathering is a long established use of private security firms and may often be for entirely legitimate reasons, we feel that there is genuine cause for concern in this instance. The rising tide of threats that saboteurs or their families will be "got at" at home (see threat made by head of team of Irish Guards, above) coupled with attacks on saboteurs or their property outside the field all give rise to genuine concern. These attacks usually take the form of attacks on saboteurs' homes or vehicles but there have been instances of saboteurs being physically assaulted outside the field. These attacks seem to have become not just more numerous but also more sinister: in one recent incident, a Milton Keynes saboteur had a bomb placed under her car. While the perpetrators in these attacks are rarely identified (as is often the case in such attacks), the fact remains that such attacks are on the increase and that some of the shadier elements of the private security world are well known for carrying out such attacks.

Above and beyond the law

If security and stewards were to operate entirely within the law and restrict themselves to the task they are supposedly employed for, there would be little cause for concern. Saboteurs would probably still not like the situation as stewards are designed to be restrictive and no-one likes having their activities constrained, especially when they feel they are morally in the right. However, there would not be the need for the alarm that is currently felt, not just by saboteurs but by also by police officers and others concerned that security firms seem to feel they can operate outside the law with impunity. More alarming still, in many areas it seems that security and stewards are operating by their own laws dictated only by their own operational considerations and the whims of those who employ them.

We have already examined how this has led to violent assaults and illegal eviction from public rights of way being commonplace. There are, however, further areas of concern in relation to security firms establishing what essentially amounts to their own private laws.

Many security operatives seem to feel that they are a direct replacement for, and in some instances superior to, the police. This is manifested in security and stewards abrogating police powers to themselves and even impersonating police officers. Saboteurs have frequently reported being "arrested"; by stewards in instances where it is clear no civil power of "citizen's arrest" exists and also stewards physically detaining and searching them, supposedly for "prohibited items" (generally hunting horns), which the stewards then attempt to confiscate. The powers of a police officer to lawfully conduct a search are stringently specified by the 1984 Police and Criminal Evidence Act (PACE) and the power to detain someone in order to do so is not one granted lightly. The circumstances in which a police officer could lawfully search someone for a hunting horn are rare; for civilian security personnel to detain someone in order to do so and then confiscate property amounts to trespass upon the person, unlawful detention, assault and theft.

"We were called in at 24 hours notice and we arrested 15 saboteurs" Brian Pursglove, Estate Management Services, Shooting Gazette, December 1992

There are also problems in the way the police deal with crimes committed by security operatives, arising from a combination of indifference and uncertainty. Some police forces almost encourage security and stewards to believe they can operate their own private laws by regularly turning a blind eye to abuse of their powers and blatantly criminal acts committed by hunt security. Essex Police are particularly to blame in this respect; saboteurs have been beaten up and knocked unconscious in front of officers who have refused to take any action (see various examples throughout the Appendix). However, other forces must also share the blame: many saboteurs were assaulted in front of police officers at the Northumberland Beagling Festival. The refusal of Dorset Police to act over the head of a security firm impersonating a police officer to try and bully a terrified housewife (who had just been beaten up in her own home by his employees) into not making a complaint almost beggars belief. Some police forces have taken action against abuses by hunt security; others seem content to turn a blind eye to some abuses but will not tolerate serious criminal acts being committed under their noses; far too many seem prepared to tolerate almost any action no matter how palpably criminal as long as it is committed under the quasi-legal cover of "security".

While attitudes and policies vary across and within forces, there is nonetheless a distinct trend that police forces are unwilling to investigate offences committed by hunt security and almost universally loathe to prosecute them. In some instances there appears to be an element of a feeling of kinship between police and security officers as representing the same forces of law and order against the "unruly hordes", although as many police officers deeply resent the intrusion of private security officers into an area for which they are neither trained to deal with, nor accountable for anything that may go wrong. In other instances, the reluctance to investigate and prosecute offences committed by security is not primarily due to indifference to the offences but more due to uncertainty as to exactly what powers security officers actually have. In default of any clear regulations or even guidelines as to how security operatives should behave, many police officers feel it is difficult to effectively prosecute clear breaches of the law, as security will always hide behind a defence of doing their job or "reasonable force". Whether the cause of the lack of police attitude is indifference or ignorance, the overall effect is that there is currently no effective form of regulation or control of private security operatives, not even the law of the land. As long as this grossly unsatisfactory situation is allowed to continue, security personnel will continue to operate their own private laws, outside of the law of the land, safe in the knowledge that they can commit offences with impunity.

Broader concerns and the need for regulation

"The presence of stewards might just escalate the problems..." Chief Inspector Jon Wilce, Surrey Police, Police Review

Hunt security personnel, be they employees of security firms or stewards recruited by hunts, are being used as private armies to enforce private laws dictated at the whim of the employer or of the security personnel themselves. There is a very clear pattern of security and stewards being used to prevent lawful protests taking place; to illegally deny access to public rights of way or land over which they have no authority; to attack, beat and threaten opponents of hunting either to intimidate them from continuing protesting or as a punishment for having done so; and of security operating outside the law, routinely committing criminal offences, often of a violent nature, with impunity.

These issues are of wider concern than just the rather narrow field of hunting, although obviously the right to conduct lawful protest without being subject to illegal acts is as important here as anywhere else. However, to leave this issue aside for the moment, the manner in which security personnel are being used raises very serious issues concerning public order law and policing in general.

It is clear that in many areas of the country, landowners or hunts are using security personnel to supplant and replace the police and enforce their own version of what they think the law should be. If a landowner feels that he does not want people using footpaths that cross his land, he simply has to call in security personnel who will happily enforce his new regime. This has broad implications for many members of the general public who do nothing more controversial than enjoy walks in the countryside.

More sinisterly, if an organisation decides it does not like vocal opposition to its activities, security personnel will be only too glad to stifle such protest, using violence as a first resort and regularly employing weapons. These abuses are not too far removed from the political militias which all too often have played such a prominent role in undermining the rule of law in other countries. If this seems alarmist, consider this: if a foxhunt can employ security firms or its own stewards to attack its opponents, why should this not also be the case for, say, an extremist political group?

The abrogation of police powers by security is also of particular concern. Security personnel are increasingly conferring on themselves the power to arrest and detain individuals who they deem to be in some inimical to the interests of their employer, to stop and search individuals, to confiscate or destroy property and a host of other powers which in many cases are not even granted to the police. In most cases, this is happening without the police being aware of the broad trend to abrogate such powers, even though they may be aware of individual instances. Their willingness to turn a blind eye or dismiss these abuses as unimportant or insignificant one-offs is aiding this process and undermining the role of the police.

The police are the primary agency for law enforcement in this country. The use of private security in this fashion and the almost carte blanche licence to commit abuses is severely undermining this role. Without some form of legal restraint on what roles security personnel can fulfil and what actions they can and cannot undertake, coupled with guidelines to the police on how to deal with private security, this creeping process will continue. It is not sufficient merely to say that existing laws already cover illegal acts carried out by security personnel: such legislation is not being enforced or is being evaded using the quasi-legal status of being "security".

While security firms continue to operate without specific, strict and enforceable regulation, they pose a very real threat to the future of accountable public order policing in this country. Private laws are being imposed and enforced by security personnel and their employers and criminal offences are being committed with impunity. Without such regulation, we run a very grave risk of seriously undermining the concept of one impartial set of laws that apply to everyone, enforced by one impartial, democratically accountable agency, and replacing them with a series of private armies enforcing private laws.

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? "Who is to guard the guards themselves?" (Juvenal; Satires, VI.347)