I would like to support Dom Joseph Parkinson’s letter criticising the ridiculously lenient sentence meted-out to all four thugs who were involved in the feeding of live fox cubs to hounds.

Dom Joseph is quite right to call out the judges staggering naivety, by judging the main protagonist to be unlikely to transgress in this way again.

However, when I read in the HT that the judge accepted the claim by the two who transported the fox cubs to the kennels, to be unaware of their intended fate, and indeed were saving the cubs, I thought I may have entered a parallel universe. A universe where any old guff is duly accepted by half witted legal professionals.

For the record, I am not a truculent townie (before anybody tries that one) but a countryman who would like to see the behaviour of other folks involved in country pursuits at least transcend those of cowardly toerags!

Charles Smith

Kingsland

Impose ban

I am haunted by the capture and the brutal, barbaric killing of fox cubs by Paul Oliver and Hannah Rose at the South Herefordshire Hunt in 2016.

Two others, Julie Elmore and Paul Reece, pleaded guilty to two counts of causing unnecessary suffering to foxes. They were given six month conditional discharges and both ordered to pay £50 costs and a victim surcharge of £20.

Paul Oliver was convicted of four counts of animal cruelty and Hannah Rose of three counts of the same charge.

Photographic evidence showed Oliver throwing terrified live fox cubs into the hounds and then dumping the cubs’ remains into a bin. For these offences Oliver was given a sixteen week suspended prison sentence and Rose a twelve week suspended sentence. Both were ordered to pay £300 in costs.

The Judge said “The fox cubs suffered a painful, terrifying death”.

Punishment should fit the crime, and in my opinion, their sentences were only a slap on the wrist. A more appropriate sentence in my opinion, would be for both to be banned from keeping any animal and from working with any animals for life.

Both should be subject to a five year term of imprisonment, not suspended and they should be responsible for all court costs.

In my opinion, this would be an appropriate punishment and would act as a deterrent to others.

Animals cannot speak for themselves. It needs fair minded people to speak up for them. I am disgusted by the barbaric cruelty and the lenient sentences given.

Mrs Beryl Jenkins

Risca, Gwent