I JUST HEARD A HUGE BANG
Hate campaigners suspected
TELLY star Chris Packham revealed yesterday that hate campaigners blew up a Land Rover outside his front gate.
Balaclava-clad thugs drove the vehicle to the BBC Springwatch presenter’s remote country home and set fire to it before fleeing in a getaway car.
Chris, 60, said he was alone at the house in the early hours of Friday when the 4X4 turned into an inferno before it exploded.
In an exclusive interview with the Sunday People, the anti-hunt campaigner said: “I’d gone to bed and absolutely crashed out, literally crashed out, zonked.
“The gate isn’t visible from the bedroom but of course when it exploded, it went off with a massive bang which woke me and the dogs up. It was an inferno.”
He added: “The neighbours called the fire brigade and they turned up and put it out. The police turned up a bit later.”
Targeted
The flames spread to the gate and fence of his property in Hampshire’s New Forest.
Brave Chris – who despite the attack led a march to Buckingham Palace to call on the Royal Family to re-wild their estates yesterday– has been targeted before.
In 2019 he received death threats after launching a legal challenge to stop people shooting birds seen as pests, like crows and pigeons.
He was also sent packages of human excrement, had barbed wire left on his drive to puncture his tyres and found dead crows tied to his front gate.
Chris’s long-term partner, conservationist Charlotte Corney,
44, has been targeted by online trolls.
The attacks have also rattled his stepdaughter and fellow
TV host Megan
Mccubbin, 25, who often stays at the house.
Two years ago the
Wild Justice Group, which
Chris belongs to, helped force through a change in the law around shooting 16 species of birds. The move infuriated hunters and farmers, who said they could no longer cull crows attacking newborn lambs or stop pigeons stripping crops unless they applied for individual licences.
The Government later introduced three new bird control licences – but they do not apply in certain protection zones.
Chris says he has stopped telling his partner and step daughter about some of the more recent hate incidents.
He said: “I didn’t tell anyone because it was just same-old, same-old.
“And then recently someone threw a dead badger by the gate, but again that’s same-old, same-old.
“I didn’t even bother to tell Charlotte and Megs. The security and police were saying, ‘What’s next? If they had a truck they could ram it through any gates, drive up to the house and set fire to it alongside the house.
“It’s all about intimidation, they’re trying to intimidate me and it’s threatening.”
Hurt
Chris added: “We’re worried about the dogs too, we love them and don’t want them to come to any harm.
“If these people are prepared to burn something down then are they prepared to hurt my friends and family? That’s the next question.
“I get up every morning and my underlying mission is to try and make the world a better place for wildlife and people. That’s it. I think it’s relatively straight-forward.
I do campaign against fox hunting because I don’t think it’s great for wildlife and it distresses 86 per cent of the UK population.
“I do campaign against unsustainable and illegal shooting.
“I do complain about these things and I draw attention to them
but I don’t burn anything down. I don’t damage people’s property or their livelihoods and I don’t threaten them. All I do is ask them to change their mind.”
Hampshire Police appealed for help in catching the arsonists.
A spokesman said: “It was reported that a vehicle was on fire outside a property, which had subsequently spread to a surrounding gate and fence. Hampshire Fire and Rescue Service attended and extinguished the blaze.
“No arrests have been made. “Were you in the area at the time? Did you see what happened?
“Or perhaps you have dash-cam footage or doorbell footage leading up to the incident.”
Yesterday Chris, along with several hundred children and a jazz band, marched through Central London to Buckingham Palace to deliver a petition signed by 100,000 people calling on the royals to re-wild their land.
Former Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, celebrity chef Hugh Fearnley-whittingstall, actors Sir
Mark Rylance and
Josh O’connor and original Springwatch host Kate Humble all signed the petition ahead of the COP26 climate change conference in Scotland.
They want the Queen and other royals to re-wild their vast estates by reintroducing animals like beavers and wild boar, reducing deer numbers to allow tree regeneration, halting grouse shooting and going organic.
Chris said: “We are very politely asking them to change their practices and if they could announce that before COP26 it would send out a brilliant message across the world.
“This is not the time for talking
about doing things any more, this is the time to actually do them.
“So whilst they are saying the right things, what better place to do the right thing than in your very own, very large, back yard.”
He added practices like grouse shooting, where land is burned and drained and lead shot is used, “are not compatible with some of the things that the royal family are saying about their genuine concerns when it comes to the environment”.
The Royal Estates said it has a long history of conservation and biodiversity and constantly looks at making further improvements.
The Queen, the Duke and Duchess of Cornwall, and Duke and Duchess of Cambridge will attend the United Nations climate change conference in Glasgow next month.
If anyone has any information in relation to
this incident, call 101 quoting
44210403698.