A HUNTSMAN has been fined by a court after illegally hunting foxes while out with a Herefordshire hunt.

A joint investigation by police rural crime teams uncovered messages which showed him John Oliver Finnegan bragging and admitting to the illegal hunting of foxes, Gloucestershire Constabulary said.

The 37-year-old, of Northwich in Cheshire, pleaded guilty at Cheltenham Magistrates' Court on December 6 to hunting a wild mammal with dogs.

Finnegan, who was the huntsman for a group based in Leicestershire, gave the guilty plea on the first day of a trial and was ordered to pay £1,331 under the Hunting Act of 2004.

On January 7, local hunt monitors reported that they had seen a group illegally hunting on land in the village of Hartpury.

Video footage showed Finnegan taking a number of hounds into woodland whilst the rest of the hunt stayed around the perimeter.

The hounds were then seen running out of the woodland while loudly and aggressively barking.

Moments later the hounds were digging at the ground which indicated that a mammal had gone to ground via a fox den or badger sett.

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The group were approximately 20 metres away and used their horn to control the hounds before calling them away.

Finnegan and other members of the group were later seen racing their horses along the road. The hounds were not with them but could be heard in a nearby derelict building.

This evidence was provided to police and officers linked Finnegan to the incident after his mobile phone was seized by Leicestershire Police in relation to offences believed to have been committed in their area.

WhatsApp messages showed him admitting to hunting mammals. The conversations made reference to the January hunt in Gloucestershire and discussed his involvement.

Examples of the WhatsApp messages included:

From: Other huntsman

How’d you get on at ledbury today?

From: Finnegan

S**t only found a brace, first one by Redvers House got headed about 20 times and went to ground. The second was on a brook at the back of the mares yard he went 5 fields to a real thick cover by griffin’s which we weren’t aloud in and had to stop them

PC Phil Mawdsley from Gloucestershire Constabulary's Rural Crime Team said: "This has been a lengthy investigation into an incident of fox hunting concerning Finnegan, who at the time, was the huntsman for the Quorn Hunt based in Leicestershire.

"On January 7 this year he joined up with the Ledbury Hunt and led an illegal fox hunt through the area of Hartpury in Gloucestershire.

"His actions were witnessed and reported to police. An investigation was launched by the team and with assistance from Leicestershire Police's Rural Crime Team evidence of the offence was uncovered through phone messages which showed Finnegan bragging and admitting to the illegal hunting of foxes."

Sergeant Paul Archer from Leicestershire Police's rural policing team added: "When we examined Finnegan’s phone, we found a number of messages which implicated him in hunting foxes in Gloucestershire.

“We are always proactive in working with other forces and these messages were passed on, resulting in colleagues from Gloucestershire being able to charge him with offences related to fox-hunting."

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