Sentencing hare coursers: consultation announced
A chance to share your experiences of illegal hare coursers, and the CLA’s Claire Wright explains how specific sentencing guidelines can help prosecute criminals
The Sentencing Council for England and Wales has put out to consultation a set of draft sentencing guidelines for hare coursing offences.
Sentencing guidelines help judges and magistrates to take a consistent approach to penalising illegal activity. They also list factors that the judiciary should consider when passing sentence including; the harm that was caused to the victim, whether the offence was pre-meditated, whether a weapon was used or whether a position of trust was abused. A whole range of offences dealt with at a magistrates court have sentencing guidelines attached to them including carrying a blade in a public area, assault and theft.
Where offences do not have specific sentencing guidelines, the courts will rely on general ones. These contain a generic list of aggravating factors that should be taken into account, but, many are not directly relevant to offences committed on farmland by poachers.
Sentencing hare coursers today
Changes enacted by the Police, Crime, Sentencing & Courts Act 2022 allowed the courts to recoup kennelling costs racked up by police forces.
CLA research into fines levied by courts before the law changed looked at 111 cases of offenders either pleading guilty or being found guilty at court. The average financial penalty of fines and costs in this period was just £361.95. Since the law changed the average fine has risen to £5941.20 (albeit only based on 22 cases so far).
However, there is scope for more to be done in tackling hare coursing offences and the CLA believes that having specific sentencing guidelines will be one more step towards stamping out this criminality.
Share your experiences of hare coursers
The CLA will be submitting a response to this consultation but the Sentencing Council is also keen to hear from victims and their families who have been impacted by hare coursing activity, whether recently or in the past. We would urge any CLA member who has been affected by illegal hare coursing to submit their comments to the consultation.
Members have until Friday 25 April 2025 to comment on the proposals. Responses can either be e-mailed to the Sentencing Council using consultation@sentencingcouncil.gov.uk or they can be submitted using an online form.
