HSA news release 5th November 2002

Rocket attack on Hunt Saboteur's home

In the early hours of this morning, just after midnight, a hunt saboteur's house in Dorchester, Dorset, had an incendiary device fired through the letterbox. The device, believed to be a "rocket" firework, let off a loud explosion waking neighbours and filled the downstairs of the house with black smoke. It is by luck not design that the explosion did not start a fire endangering the lives of the family asleep upstairs.

Hunt saboteur Neal, who is too fearful for his young family's safety to reveal his full name, is under no illusions about where the blame lies: "Some hunt supporter has done this because we had such a great day on Saturday at the South Dorset Hunt. They were hunting on the outskirts of town and we stopped them chasing a fox that lives round the back of some people's houses. The huntsman was so angry he lost it completely. He was even swearing at his own supporters."

This is not the first attack Neal has suffered. As well as numerous violent attacks whilst protesting, he has suffered vandalism to his cars, threatening phone calls, dead animals dumped on his doorstep and even a "home visit" from a terrierman armed with a pick axe handle.

In a separate incident on Saturday, a hunt saboteur at the Essex and Suffolk Hunt near Semer, Suffolk was driven into by a hunt supporter armed with an iron bar. He was then forced to cling on for life as the hunt supporter drove at speeds of up to 50mph with the protestor on the bonnet of the car. Half a mile up the road the driver was forced to halt at a cross roads and the saboteur was able to jump clear.

Nathan Brown, on behalf of the Hunt Saboteurs Association said "People who get their kicks from killing animals have shown themselves to have no regard for human life either. Anyone who voices opposition to these rural vandals is bullied or beaten into silence. How dare they whinge about the right to hunt as if it were a human right when they actively try to deny real Human Rights - the Right to Protest and the Right to Life!"