LETTER OF THE WEEK

Seeing through the smokescreen

I was delighted to see that the conviction against Mark Hankinson, the former director of the Masters of Foxhounds Association (MFHA), was overturned on appeal (News, 27 July). As a former rider to hounds, I was distressed to think that someone of his standing should be found to be acting illegally.

And if I thought that, so must many other hunting folk. The appeal shows that Mr Hankinson wasn’t doing anything that was unlawful — the charge centred on a webinar he had led, in which his accusers insisted that he was encouraging hunts to break the law. His original defence was that he was suggesting how laying false trails could be used to lure saboteurs — who, absurdly,