Police ‘to spy in sky’ in cull zones

BADGER cull protesters say police in one part of the West have warned them their activities could be monitored by drones, following what Devon and Cornwall officers call a “disproportionate degree of criminality.”

The Guardian website reported yesterday it had seen an email to protesters from Devon and Cornwall police saying that it would consider the spy-in-the-sky tactics “where intelligence dictates.”

Earlier this month Environment Secretary Michael Gove expanded the cull zones across England. In the far South West 68 per cent of Devon and 54 per cent of Cornwall are now covered by badger culling.

Green Party animal rights spokesperson Keith Taylor criticised the proposed tactics yesterday, saying they were “symptomatic of a wider crackdown on the civil liberties of environmental protesters.”

The senior Green politician, and Vice Chair of the European Parliament’s Animal Welfare Intergroup, went on: “It is truly astonishing that the authorities have managed to tie the government’s war on wildlife in with the continued war on our civil liberties.

“It is a malevolent act of authoritarian, anti-wildlife and anti-environment decision making.”

But Supt Richard Hooper-Bennett, silver commander for the badger policing operation in Devon and Cornwall, said: “Unfortunately, some areas within the cull zone have been subject to a disproportionate degree of criminality. Whilst we respect the right to peaceful protest and will always facilitate this, we also have a duty to protect our rural communities from crime.”