Boorish, offensive, distasteful
Judge’s verdict on huntsman’s risque remarks to protester
‘Can I take you to bed?’
A HUNT master caught on camera propositioning a married protester for sex has been condemned by a judge for his ‘boorish’ and ‘offensive’ behaviour.
Charles Carter, 34, was forced to resign as a Tory councillor after telling motherof-four Linda Hoggard, ‘I’d like to shag you actually’ – when she accused him of chasing a fox.
The master of Middleton Hunt in North Yorkshire was yesterday found not guilty of illegally hunting foxes along with his whipper-in Colin Milburn, 59.
Judge Adrian Lower told York magistrates’ court there was no case to answer because the prosecution had been unable to prove that either man had intentionally caused the hounds to hunt down two foxes on farmland on January 23 this year.
During the hearing, the court was played a video of Carter, in his red hunting tunic, peering down from his mount at Mrs Hoggard as he said: ‘What is your name? I would quite like to shag you actually.’ He then added: ‘ Can I take you to bed? … you are very pretty.’
Prosecutor Christopher Rowe said Carter told police he made the comments to Mrs Hoggard to ‘make light of the situation’.
But Judge Lower said: ‘The comments made by Mr Carter do him no credit. They were boorish, offensive, distasteful and I imagine they caused a degree of upset regardless of what Mr Carter may have thought when asked to reflect on his behaviour in interview with the police.’
However, he said he had to ‘put that to one side’ on deciding the case. Carter had initially been charged with causing harassment, alarm or distress to Mrs Hoggard but the charge was discontinued in a previous hearing last month.
He and Milburn faced two charges of illegally hunting foxes, under the Hunting Act 2004.
To have broken the law the huntsmen would have had to be intentionally hunting the foxes and Judge Lower said there was nothing in the prosecution case that suggested they had set the hounds on the fox.
He added: ‘It is not the dogs who are on trial, they never will be. The dogs were doing what dogs do if they see a wild animal.’ Carter, who was dressed in a pin- stripe suit, left the court without commenting. He made no apology for his remarks to Mrs Hoggard.
Earlier she had told the court she lived about half an hour from where the hunt was meeting near Duggleby, North Yorkshire. She was carrying a scented spray to put the hounds off the chase and her camera because she was concerned about a pair of foxes seen in the area.
Mrs Hoggard said she saw a fox appear from a wooded area, with hounds close behind. She told the court: ‘I saw the fox running for its life and I ran towards the fox, spraying the citronella as I ran. I was trying to save its life.
‘I’m a little overweight but I was running as best I could and the fox ran into a hedge. The hounds followed and they went into a wood. I could hear the hounds barking like mad but I couldn’t see what was happening in there.’
It was 15 minutes later that Carter approached on his horse. In the video, Mrs Hoggard is shown telling him: ‘Hunting is banned so why are you hunting?
‘I have a video of a fox coming through with hounds chasing it and you still get away with it don’t you, you lot?’
Carter of Birdsall, North Yorkshire, is seen holding a mobile phone which he points at Mrs Hoggard as he says he’d like to take her to bed. When he follows it up with, ‘You are very pretty’, Mrs Hoggard replies: ‘Oh really? Well so are foxes.’
Carter, who at the time was in a relationship with top events rider Harriet Morris-Baumber, resigned from his post as Conservative councillor with Breckland Council in Norfolk after Mrs Hoggard’s video went viral online.
Milburn, of West Knapton, North Yorkshire, also made no comment after the case.