A suspension of trail hunting on land owned by the Lake District National Park Authority will not be lifted, despite the successful appeal of a prominent huntsman.
The authority introduced the ban while police were investigating huntsman Mark Hankinson last year. He was subsequently convicted and the suspension was made indefinite earlier this year.
The National Trust, Forestry England and United Utilities suspended licences at the same time as the national park authority.
Mr Hankinson was found guilty of suggesting trail hunting be used as a ‘smokescreen’ for illegal activity in a webinar.
But Judge Gregory Perrins, speaking at Southwark Crown Court in London, said he and the magistrates were not satisfied to the criminal standard that it was Hankinson’s intention to encourage illegal hunting and allowed the appeal against his conviction.
The judge highlighted a second webinar in which nothing Hankinson said was subject to any charge. Trail hunting is restricted by law to exercising hounds and having them follow artificial scents or ‘trails’.
But an LDNPA spokesman said the authority’s position on trail hunting on its land remained ‘unchanged’.
A spokesman for United Utilities said trail hunting would remain suspended on the organisation’s land but that it would ‘continue to review’ the future of the activity.
A Forestry England spokesman said trail hunting on the organisation’s land would remain suspended ‘until our board decides on its future in forests we care for’.
A National Trust spokesman said: “There were many contributing factors in our decision to no longer issue trail hunting activities on National Trust land, including the appropriate use of charitable funds, the risk of reputational harm to the trust and the result of the recent members’ resolution vote on this matter at our October 2021 annual general meeting.
“We will not be reviewing our position on trail hunting as a result of this appeal.”
More than half of the land in the Lake District is privately owned. Less than four per cent is owned by the national park authority, with the rest owned by organisations such as the National Trust.
