Kathleen Nutt

Political Correspondent

POLICE Scotland will this week demand that MSPs close loopholes in new legislation to help crackdown on illegal hare coursing.

Officers are warning criminals are getting around a ban on the cruel activity - which sees people use dogs to chase and kill hares by saying their dogs ran off accidentally - and that the bill going through Holyrood does not tighten the law sufficiently.

They want MSPs to reword the document in a way which would allow people who ‘wilfully/intentionally or recklessly’ let their animals chase hares could be prosecuted and will make their case to a Scottish Parliament committee on Wednesday.

The Hunting with Dogs (Scotland) Bill bill is designed to update current foxhunting laws - the Protection of Wild Mammals (Scotland) Act 2002 - and follows a review of this legislation by Lord Bonomy in 2016.

It is being scrutinised by Holyrood's rural affairs committee and police say the terms ‘wilfully/intentionally or recklessly’ are used in the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 and the Protection of Badgers Act 1992.

"It is notoriously challenging to prove hare coursing offences, one of the reasons being that perpetrators often state the circumstances were accidental as the dogs began chasing a hare outwith their direction after it was let off its lead to exercise," said a written submission to the committee by Police Scotland's Detective Sergeant William Telford.

"The bill takes steps to address this through the removal of the term ‘deliberate’ but Police Scotland do not consider this measure alone to be sufficient, because to paraphrase Lord Bonomy ‘hunting’ is in itself a deliberate act so whether or not the word ‘deliberate’ is applied, the activity being referred to is purposeful."

Mr Telford added: "If the term ‘recklessly’ was applied it would negate against fabricated excuses that a hare was pursued ‘accidentally’, if, even though this may be the case the circumstances were such that the act of letting the dog off its lead was reckless.

"Another fabricated excuse commonly used by hare coursers is that they were using dogs to hunt rabbits rather than hares. As such Police Scotland welcomes the inclusion of rabbits in the definition of ‘mammal’, as it will negate such excuses."

The police's submission also went on to call for the term 'reasonable steps' to be removed saying it was too subjective.

"The term ‘reasonable steps’ is used repeatedly. This term is subjective and provides little tangible guidance. For example section 3(3)(C) states “reasonable steps are taken to ensure that any dog used in the activity does not join with others to form a

pack of more than two dogs”. The preferred terminology would state something similar to “groups of dogs must not combine”.

The police also want the bill to review what it says on orders which disqualify someone from keeping an animal and say the order should also mean that the offender cannot live in the same home as the dog.

"This would negate against false claims the dog belongs to a family member also resident in the same domicile as the offender," the submission said.

Hare coursing is the deliberate hunting of hares with dogs and has been banned in Scotland since 2002. The outlawed activity, which sees criminals travelling long distances to meetings, take place all year round however is most prevalent between August and April when crops are cut short, enabling dogs and their handlers to see the hares more easily. Hares are hunted using dogs, causing a cruel and painful death.

Angus and the north-east of Scotland have are among Scotland's worst wildlife crime hotspots, with brutal bloodsports among the most common offences.

In January this year three men from Aberdeenshire were convicted of hare coursing after mobile phone messages and footage was recovered.

Peter Anderson, Philip Starr and Phillip Wilson, all from Macduff, travelled to Brechin to take part in the activity and later pleaded guilty to wildlife offences at Forfar Sheriff Court.

Anderson, 51, and Starr, 41, pled guilty to breaching the act and the Wildlife and Countryside Act. They were given community payback orders compelling them to carry out 190 hours' unpaid work and banned from keeping dogs for two years.

Wilson, 25, was handed the same sentence for the same breaches, with the addition of a year's supervision.

The three men were spotted filming the barbaric act by concerned farmers who alerted the police to their activities. The men were caught after farm owners noticed that two lurcher dogs were chasing a wild hare.