Creating our own justice.
A full list of those involved in the hunt at the time is available here.
Firstly we must remember that immediately after the incident took place, when an ambulance was trying to get to the scene, the rest of the hunt blocked the road for five minutes. Rupert Nuttall the master at the time stood over the victim and proclaimed that she was fine. She suffered seven broken ribs and a punctured lung and was hospitalised for two weeks.
Mark Doggrell the redcoat that mowed the sab down initially gave a “no comment” interview then submitted a prepared statement after he had seen the video footage.
Under caution he stated he had a 10-15 second view of the gate on his approach, he changed this under cross examination and had to be rescued from tying himself in knots by his barrister.
He went from saying he carried on because “it was close” (meaning he thought he hadn’t hit anyone) to admitting he may have ‘clipped’ someone to saying it was a glancing blow.
He denied knowing protestors were in the area, then admitted he’d heard there were protestors around. When asked why he didn’t stop when he’d hit her, he said:
“If I thought it was a member of the public I’d have stopped”
He denied hearing the hunting horn used by the sabs, then said he thought it was a child’s toy.
The police couldn’t extrapolate a speed but the expert witness suggested it was up to 30mph.
That expert witness (Debbie Marsden) for the huntsman said Doggrell wouldn’t have felt the horse hitting the sab and his action of riding through a small gap was “appropriate”.
The expert gives riding lessons at a farm that hosts meets for the Duke of Buccleuch hunt.
It is the opinion of people who went to court that it was the expert witness testimony that secured Doggrell his “not guilty” judgement.
Doggrell said that he’d gone into the field to collect hounds, but there was no evidence of this on the video, only a couple that had followed him.
He said they were trail hunting and there would have been 2 or 3 people laying the trail, the truth is that the hunt was cub hunting, an activity that involves surrounding a wood and then sending in young hounds to get them to learn to kill for the season ahead. That they take children to such an event, perhaps explains the sort of people they grow up to be.