KIDNAPPED FARMER

Southland Times, Issue 22485, 21 January 1935, Page 8

KIDNAPPED FARMER

AWARD OF £lOO DAMAGES. TROUBLE REGARDING FOXES. A Hampshire farmer, John Thomas Chalmers, of Newton Valence, was awarded £lOO damages at Winchester recently against six men who kidnapped him following a dispute over the alleged killing of foxes. Chalmers alleged that he was decoyed to a remote spot, where masked men set about him, tied him up, and drove him in a car for 17 miles, and then poured beer over him before he was set at liberty. Counsel for plaintiff said that it was a most extraordinary thing that had happened and the jury would have to consider whether it did not call for very serious damages. “The plaintiff,” he said, “is a farmer and was and still is a tenant of the defendant, Captain J. B. Scott. On May 11 he was induced by Renyard, who is in the employ of Captain Scott, to go at night to a place near Hedge End Comer. He had a friend in his car, but the friend remained in it. Chalmers was asked to put the lights of the car out, and was decoyed to a dell and there was some argument about a fox-skin.” Foxes on the Farm. Chalmers, said council, had had some trouble with foxes on his farm. He was not satisfied that the hunt was doing anything to help him, and he was making an offer to buy fox-skins. It was Renyard’s excuse to ask him to buy a skin. There was a discussion because it was a very old skin and there was some disagreement about it. “Chalmers was about to go when he observed three masked heads in the bushes. They alarmed him and he made off with some speed, but his way was obstructed by four men, also masked, who set about him with sticks and cudgels. He was knocked down and beaten with these sticks and was set upon by six, seven or eight men together. He was tied up, blindfolded and gagged. He was pushed into a motorcar and was detained by force in that car and driven some 17 miles to Harting, in Sussex.

“At Harting Chalmers was untied and beer was poured over him from bottles. Then he was set at liberty to go home as best he could.” The police were informed and Chalmers was eventually brought home in a motorcycle cobination at about 5 a.m. Chalmers agreed that he had employed two ex-convicts to erect notices in the district suggesting that people should kill foxes.

Clothes Smelling of Beer.

Ernest Pullen, of South Harting, stated that when Chalmers called at his hotel his hair was wet and his clothes smelt of beer. “He looked like a man who had been out all night and had had a rough' time,” he said. In February last, said counsel, Chalmers, who considered he had suffered much at the hands of Captain Scott, made a complaint and brought proceedings against Captain Scott for a large sum, which was still in the hands of arbitrators. Under the terms of an agreement between them foxes must not be destroyed by the farmer so that they could be perserved for the benefit of the hunting community. The farmer, on the other hand, was allowed certain sums of money for damage done by foxes. In 1934 Chalmers complained of very substantial losses through foxes. His complaint came before the hunt, and members of the hunt committee visited the farm. There was no dispute that Chalmers had suffered a real loss, but he never received compensation. In describing what happened, one of the defendants said: “We tied Chalmers’ hands and legs together, put a sheet over his head, and placed him in my car. Nobody hit him with a stick. It was not true that he was gagged. We wore small black masks. When we took him out of the car he was given some beer by one man. He promised he would never kill any more foxes, and that was what we really wanted. After he had made that promise he walked away, and we drove off. When we got back we went to the local police station and reported this.” An “Objectionable Custom.” Mr Justice Humphreys, in summing up, said there was no doubt that what Chalmers was subjected to was an outrage. “You are asked by counsel to say that this is not a case for heavy damages because it is said that Chalmers is a very objectionable person. He has admitted one thing which everybody very much dislikes—that is, poisoning animals. Ido not know that it is any worse to poison a fox than it is to poison a cat or a dog, or for the matter of that, a rat. It is a very objectionable way of getting rid of animals unless you poison them as veterinary surgeons do. I do not suppose there is anybody in any court in England who does not regard a person who is in the habit of poisoning animals as a very nasty trick. Was that the reason why the six defendants threatened him in this way? Not one of them said so.” Damages of £lOO were awarded plaintiff against the six defendants. The jury found that Captain Scott was not a party to the kidnapping arrangement.