Kimblewick Hunt pair given 12 week suspended sentence for causing 'unnecessary suffering to a protected animal'

Mark Vincent, aged 53 and Ian Parkinson, aged 65 have been sentenced to 12 weeks in prison which will be suspended for 12 months at Oxford Magistrates Court.

Ian Parkinson and Mark Vincent were filmed brutally dragging out a fox trapped in an artificial earth, before releasing it in front of baying hounds to provide ‘sport’ for the hunt on New Year’s Day.

This was followed by the arrival of the the New Year's Day Hunt in the Woodland in Moreton, not far from Thame.

The Judge has now ordered that Mark and Ian must now do 120 hours of unpaid work and pay £960 in court costs.

Parkinson, of Lower Road, Haddenham, and Vincent, of Kimblewick, Aylesbury, were found guilty of one count of causing unnecessary suffering to a protected animal.

This is not the first time the Kimblewick Hunt have been in trouble, as they were forced to euthanize nearly 100 dogs after an outbreak of bovine tuberculosis in 2017.

Ninety-seven dogs out of 164 tested positive for the disease when the alarm was raised at the Kimblewick Hunt kennels and one human being had also contracted the disease too.

Animals that contract bTB can become anorexic, suffer shortness of breath and vomiting before they die.