The Sinnington Set-up
Basically, the story was that an "undercover investigator" from one of the anti-hunt organisations claims to have discovered that the Sinnington Hunt was either breeding or rearing foxes in a piece of remote woodland belonging to the hunt.
After photographs were taken of these fox cubs in the cage, they were then, so they claim, "released" because they were in "poor condition".
At no time was any employee or member of the hunt ever caught or photographed coming to the cage.
This story is extremely unlikely to be true for two good reasons.
First,
IF
you were going to rear foxes for hunting, you would keep them in peak condition, so as to ensure a good hunt. You certainly would not let them get into such poor condition that they had to be released for their own safety.Second,
This so-called "undercover agent" claimed to have been working against the hunts for over a decade.
Here he finds the perfect opportunity to prove, once and for all, that we are all naughty liars, and what does he do?
He goes home.
Now you might think that when, after over ten years, he is finally offered this
golden opportunity, he would have lain in a muddy ditch for three weeks in order to get that final incriminating photo. But this man, he went home.How long could the hunt possibly have left fox cubs between feeds, two days, three?
But he went home.
His excuse?
The cubs were in poor condition and had to be released.So?
Even if that had been true, the Hunt wouldn't have known that they had been released.
He could have perfectly easily staked out the empty cage.
But he went home.
Yeah. Right. Just how likely is that?
A far more believable explanation is that :
the reason this man knew the foxes were there was that he had put them there himself,
and
the reason that the hunt did not visit them is that no one from the hunt had any idea that they were there.
The postscript to this story is that the Masters of Foxhounds Association set up a Board of Enquiry to investigate these allegations, and invited all concerned parties to testify.
When, after a wait of six months, NO evidence had been received whatsoever, the Board of Enquiry was disbanded.