Paul Reece and Julie Elmore, while right Paul Oliver is accused of throwing the dead foxes into a wheelie bin (Picture: SWNS)

An animal rights investigator allegedly caught the moment a hunt’s master fed live fox cubs to his dogs.

Paul Oliver, 40, is accused of throwing the animals to his hounds before the two foxes were later found dead in a wheelie bin. He denies charges.

On Friday Birmingham Magistrates Court was played the covert recordings, after anti-hunt activists installed the hidden cameras at South Herefordshire Hunt kennels on May 16, 2016.

Three people have gone on trial accused of animal cruelty charges after the covert footage came to light.


The video is believed to have shown a man carrying a fox cub into the kennels as hounds can be heard barking.



Minutes later the man comes out of the kennel and dumps the dead animal into a bin before spraying it with a liquid.

The footage was captured on a secretly installed camera (Picture: SWNS)

The footage showed the man carrying a live fox to the kennels (Picture: SWNS)

Its dead body was seen thrown into a wheelie bin (Picture: SWNS)

Oliver, kennel maid Hannah Rose, 30, and terrierman Nathan Parry, 40, deny four charges of causing unnecessary suffering to a protected animal.

Julie Elmore, 55, of Abergavenny, Wales, and Paul Reece, 48, from Itton, Wales, have admitted two counts of causing unnecessary suffering to a protected animal.

The court heard how an animal rights investigator, Karl Garside, captured the incident after placing a magnetic tracker on Parry’s Land Rover.

He said the cameras were installed near white trailers on site of SHH Kennels, where he also found a fox cub in a cage.

Mr Garside pointed out that fox hunting was banned in 2005, so he installed the camera to establish why the fox cub was in there.

Julie Elmore and Paul Reece have admitted two counts of causing unnecessary suffering to a protected animal (Picture: SWNS)

Nathan Parry denies charges (Picture: SWNS)

Hannah Rose also denies charges (Picture: SWNS)

He said footage showed a man in a cap putting the dead fox into a bin, before he is seen taking another fox cub into the kennel.

Mr Garside added: ‘He is then seen spraying something onto the foxes in the bin, we went the to site later and saw the fox cubs in the bin, they looked blue.’

A rural practitioner told the court he believed the foxes may have been killed by being battered with a hammer before being given to the dogs.

The defence witness, who was only referred to as Dr Lomax, said: ‘We know that injuries to the head and chest occurred about a minute of each other.

‘One would assume that the blow to the head would’ve been first.’

He added: ‘In my opinion the chest injuries to the fox cubs were caused by one big dog.

‘The crushing injuries to the chest could also have caused instantaneous death.

‘Fox cub bones are soft, the jaws of large dog would crush the heart. I’m not saying that is what happened, but it is possible.’

The trial, which is due to last a week, will resume on Monday.

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