Royal godmother faces probe over ‘hunt whip attack’
PrinceSS eugenie’s vivacious godmother Lulu Hutley has been reported to the police after an altercation with a hunt saboteur.
Footage has emerged of Hutley, joint master of the Surrey Union Hunt, allegedly brandishing a whip at a protester while out riding in Surrey last Saturday.
The video was posted on Facebook by a group styling itself the Guildford Hunt Saboteurs and shows a woman wearing a distinctive Surrey Union master’s collar and flourishing a whip that appears to be aimed at a saboteur with a backpack. ‘Sabs ridden into and assaulted today by the Surrey Union Hunt,’ is the message posted alongside a link to the clip.
‘A kill-free day and yet again an atrocious turnout — not looking good for this sorry state of a hunt.’
However, the Surrey Union says the clip has been taken out of context and that the hunt saboteurs, some of whom wore masks, were intimidating. ‘You can clearly see Lulu is holding the whip upside-down in order to hit
the gate, not the person. She saw the protester was trapped between the horse and the gate and was trying to make a noise by banging on the gate to get the horse to back off.
‘It was quick thinking by one of our masters in a dangerous situation and it’s terribly sad that it is being misrepresented.’
Hutley is a best friend of the Duchess of York and the pair were known for their jolly japes. The onetime headmistress of a Montessori kindergarten and pre-prep in Fulham is a former girlfriend of ex-heroin addict, the 12th Duke of Marlborough, also known as Jamie Blandford. In 1991, she married property businessman Edward Hutley.
Let’s hope her father-in-law is in an understanding mood. Peter Hutley is an evangelical Christian who launched an annual Christmas Nativity in the grounds of his Wintershall Estate in Surrey.
The Nativity includes live lambs, donkeys and sheep and presumably a few bullwhips as well . . .