MEN have been fined for hare-coursing this week after police found evidence of their crime in the snow earlier this year.
Albert Eastwood, 38, from Denton Close in Redhill, Thomas Love, 37, from Eastbourne Road in Blindley Heath, and his 18-year-old son, also called Thomas Love, hunted and killed a hare with their dogs in Saffron Walden in February.
The trio had trespassed on fields off Top Road along with two boys and their lurchers, using the heavy snow of the night before to track hares’ paw prints and hunt for the fun of it.
Conversely, police said it would have been “virtually impossible” to prosecute the men without the evidence of their tracks in the snow.
The group initially denied hare-coursing, claiming they were enjoying a walk, but officers called to the scene because of the trespassing followed the zigzagging dog and hare tracks to find a dead hare, whose corpse was still warm.
The men had tried to stuff its body down a drain to hide it from police, but after it was found they were “forced” to plead guilty, claimed investigating officer DS Dominic Farrington.
After pleading guilty the trio were ordered to pay £300 each plus £50 costs each at Colchester Magistrates Court on Tuesday, May 8.
Their car was also seized and crushed.
The two 16-year-olds are due to be sentenced at the same court on Wednesday, June 6.
DS Farrington said: “ Hare coursing causes disruption and misery to rural communities and we will not tolerate it; illustrated by the lengths to which we went to in this case.”
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