Yahoo News Trophy hunter caught stabbing deer in sickening footage before posing with hares after illegal contest
WARNING: DISTRESSING CONTENT
A trophy hunter filmed himself stabbing a young deer and leaving it to bleed to death before taking pictures with dead hares during an illegal hunt.
Jimmy Price, 25, was convicted of taking part in a hare-coursing game that saw entrants win £1,000 in prize money for the person who produced the most evidence of dead hares.
Police arrested Price in November 2018 after they received reports of men hare-coursing, a sport which was banned as part of the Hunting Act 2004.
Price’s phone was confiscated and handed to the RSPCA for investigation.
RSPCA inspector Pippa Boyd found numerous gruesome hunting images and videos from various dates in October and November last year.
One video showed Price stabbed a deer several times in the neck but not killing it.
A second man then took over and sawed the animal's neck with a blunt knife until he succeeded in cutting the animal's throat.
The deer was then shown bleeding to death, as the voices of four or five men yelling encouragement are heard in the video.
Inspector Boyd also said at Medway Magistrates Court that another video of a second deer having its throat cut was also found.
WhatsApp messages were also shown discussing the hunting game, in which entrants paid £100 to take part and could win the prizemoney along with an engraved cup.
Price initially faced nine charges relating to breeches of the Hunting Act, the Deer Act and the Wildlife and Countryside Act, all of which he denied.
Although all the photos submitted to the court were downloaded from Price's phone, he himself was often not in the shot.
Inspector Boyd said she believed this was because he was taking the photos and said she recognised one of the dogs in the images as a lurcher belonging to Price.
Prosecuting for the RSPCA, Rowan Morton was allowed to introduce evidence of Price's bad character - that he had three previous convictions related to causing unnecessary suffering to dogs.
Price was found guilty of two counts of killing a deer, and two of killing a hare.
Magistrates were told the conviction put Price in breach of a 90-day prison suspended sentence that had been imposed in March 2018 after his conviction on two counts of theft and one of attempted theft.
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Price is due to appear in court again in January along with two other men to answer further charges of causing unnecessary suffering to a dog and horses.
The magistrates decided to defer sentencing on the current convictions until the completion of the next trial on January 10.
