COURSING CRUELTY

Greymouth Evening Star, 15 November 1938, Page 3

COURSING CRUELTY

TERRIFIED RABBITS IN SACKS

LONDON, October 1

Wild rabbits, brought to a coursing meeting' in sacks, were exhausted and terrified when turned out, it was stated at Bristol yesterday, when cruelty summonses were heard against 15 men.

The case followed a Sunday morning raid carried out by 50 police and R.S.P.C.A. inspectors at Knowle West, near Bristol. Some of the police, it was stated, concealed themselves outside the field, while others in plain clothes mingled with the crowd.’ Mr. Gordon Jones, prosecuting, said that men brought sacks containing rabbits, there being as many as 16 animals in one sack. •

“Some of them were taken out of the sacks,” added Mr. Jones, “and dangled before the greyhounds’ noses. They, were so exhausted'and paralysed with fright that they did not know which way to turn. The. whole thing was mogt; pathetic.” . .. Mr. Jones remarked that. coursing in itself was legal. > t i ■ best it was a. sorry sport, bn < worst a. disgusting exhibition. Bristol it had become a. public scandal. Mr. Jones added that it was illegal to course rabbits that were .man exhausted condition. .Summonses against two of the men were dismissed, four were sent to pii-

son and the remainder were lined sums ranging from 10/- to £2. The men sent to prison are Ronald Frederick Matthews, of Essex Street, Bedminstsr, six weeks in the second division; Ernest Trude, 41, of Weymouth. Road. Bedminster, and Harry Britton, 25, of Connaught Road, Knowle, one month in the' second division; and Alfred Percy Purchase, 26, of York Road, Bedminster, 21 days In the second division.

Mr. J. P. Brazil, the chairman, said that the case Was one of the “most fearful cruelty it was possible to conceive.’’ It was a. sport tho Bench was determined to stop if possible, as it was a disgrace to the city of Bristol.