On 11th January 2017 I had attended West Mercia Police HQ with ‘Fed Rep 1’ where, Chief Inspector Jane Francis spoke with me about my grievance. Jo Holding was present as HR Officer & note taker. The meeting lasted a considerable time.
Part of my concerns raised were about the ‘meeting’ with Stephen Davies on 25th July 2016. I said that he treated me with absolutely no respect in the meeting. There was no discussion and Stephen Davies was extremely animated as he was talking about, ‘Those people’. I said that i knew straight away that it wasn’t right. I said that I didn’t ‘pigeon-hole’ people. I said we wouldn’t generalise about gay or black people like this and it wasn’t right. I said that I felt there was a mistrust of police by people because of the perception of them not challenging inappropriate behaviour. I said that I did challenge Mr Davies’s behaviour and I believed that this was the reason for me being removed from the case.
In respect of my question 10, ‘Is Stephen Davies best placed at making a decision on prosecuting this case in light of what he has said on 25/07/16’?, CI Francis said that she believed that this may have to be looked at, at a higher level. I said that I felt it was very important as I believed it had the potential to damage the force reputation. I also said, at this time, that I believed Mr Davies may have breached the Ethical Principals for the Public Prosecutor.
I also said that the officers that did not challenge Stephen Davies on the day of this meeting, and then went on to further investigate the offence were complicit in his prejudice. How could they then to be seen to investigate impartially?
The meeting ended with CI Francis agreeing that she would look into the issues raised.
On 24th January I wrote the following email to CI Francis…
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I received no response and so on 30/01/17 wrote her another email. I had received some information which astonished me. It did, however, start to make more sense about what had happened!!
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So……..Stephen Davies, a person who had admitted that ‘he shoots’, and the Prosecution Solicitor for the CPS, had spent Christmas day with DS Beth Wells, a person who had admitted that she hunted and was an investigating officer in the case!!!!!! You really couldn’t make it up!!!
Fox Cub Cruelty. Exposing corruption by Police and the CPS. 
Is it at all possible to appoint a police officer, who takes part in foxhunts (which are supposed to be illegal but continue under the ‘accidental killing’ loophole) to investigate an animal cruelty case involving fox cubs, fed live to hounds, by the huntsman of the local hunt assisted by hunt kennel staff and associaties, and still retain credibility as a regional police force, which seeks to uphold the law, protect the victims of crime, and bring perpetrators to justice, in an impartial, ethical and professional manner? To me, and to others I have spoken to about this, appointing an officer who is into hunting to investigate a crime carried out by hunting staff is beyond a joke and would be akin to putting Jimmy Saville in charge of Operation Yewtree!
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I think they were hoping Richard would put his career before his professional integrity, add a few layers to complicate things and let the case fizzle out. There seems to be a number of cases every year where the clock ticks down until nothing happens. Obviously there are some powerful players here, you can almost hear it “oh no don’t worry, we’ll make sure that the live fox cubs being fed your hounds case won’t end up in court”.
It’s the bias that’s really shocking, trying to turn this around on HIT whilst undermining the integrity of a good officer doing his job. How on earth is that acting on behalf of the law, and the common good! Trying to keep their murky little bloodsport alive. It’s appalling and I hope the media pick up on this. It should be embarrassing and damaging for the police and the CPS.
We have to remember, these people were going out and catching live animals, and then feeding them to a pack of hounds. Why? Because those hounds need training to kill foxes. This is not an isolated case, this isn’t some loose cannon, or a one off, this is what many hunts are up to, and they need exposing. Sadly, the police and the CPS don’t want to know and are seemingly inclined to cover it all up.
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here in North Yorkshire the Rural Wildlife Officer is someone who actively hunts!! On complaints from anti-fox-hunting groups she no longer deals with fox-hunting cases but just advises colleagues. Reading Richard’s account, sadly does not surprise me – I have first hand experience of the police lying, twisting and distorting things to suit their own agenda. This blog is compulsive and I have absolute admiration for Richard in bringing this out
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Again a comment from the Frenchman reading this blog… 😀 You may have heard of the case of Ms Eva Pilarski, a young woman who died of dog bites in the forêt de Retz while she was walking her own dog, and about whose death it is suspected she was attacked by the hounds of à nearby hunt. The investigation befell on the Gendarmerie. When it became known that the regional commander of the Gendarmes was himself a frequent guest of the hunt, the public prosecutor in charge decided that the case should be handled instead by the police.
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