Hare coursing is a centuries old blood sport,
where dogs are used to chase, catch and kill hares across the countryside.
It's been illegal in the UK for almost 20 years.
But it's far from being dead.
It's something that you love that much you can't control it.
It is an addiction, yeah.
We've seen significant declines in hare population where there's been intense hare coursing.
they keep going on, big money and all that.
A single good hare coursing dog had earned him £32,000.
The things they've said they're going to do to me.
You do fear for your life.
I'm here in Lincolnshire, one of the worst affected counties in the UK,
to find out what it's like to be on the front line of this crime.
Hiya.
Good morning.
Hi, I'm Dan. Nice to meet you.
I'm PC Freeman. Good to meet you.
Welcome to Spalding Police Station.
Thanks very much.
Up until now, police penalties for hare coursing have come under the Game Act, which dates back to the
1800's.
This outdated legislation often means that criminals routinely walk free with small fines.
Okay. Good morning, everybody.
So we are three months into the hare coursing season for this year.
So far this morning we've had two reports local to us.
So those are obviously being investigated now.
I think it's fair to say that the weather today is perfect for them.
So we're anticipating that we're going to see another busy day.
In Lincolnshire, they can receive up to 20 calls per day from people reporting hare coursers in the area.
I'm heading out on patrol with Paul to see if there's any about today.
Starting to see why people come here to do coursing because this is the flattest landscape in
the UK I've ever seen.
These fields you can see way, way past in the distance and I guess that's perfect for when the
dogs are chasing the hares.
So why have you stopped here?
I've stopped here because it's a regular place that we get called to.
We're told that coursers make off from this area.
What does a typical coursing event look like?
How many people are there and what actually happens?
Well, potentially, you may see one, two, three vehicles parked up roughly where we're parked over there.
You might see five, six, seven people out of the vehicles, each with a couple of dogs.
So you could see between one and let's say, ten dogs.
You'll see them being walked on the slip lead.
When there's a hare spotted, the dogs will be released to chase the hare and then it's the first dog to catch the hare is
the winner.
The brown hare is well known as an iconic symbol across the British countryside.
There used to be 4 million in the UK, but their numbers have declined by more than 80% during the past hundred
years. In areas where coursing takes place, these numbers are dropping even further.
Despite the surge of hare coursing reports in the area,
the flatness of the landscape often works against the police, making them visible from miles away.
About three quarters of a mile over there you've got the main road from Holbeach, which leads you down towards Peterborough,
it's one of the main routes out of the county.
If the coursers are here, they can see us approaching, so they've got 5 minutes to disappear.
You know, in situ, it becomes a lot more obvious how hard it must be to catch them.
It is wide open with so many access and exit routes.
We get a call that there's some suspected hare coursing activity happening nearby.
So we follow Paul to the scene.
The blue lights are up ahead, I think these guys might have caught them.
There's dogs in the back of the car muddied up number plates.
Exactly what we were told to look for.
What sort of things are you looking for in the car?
So we're looking for things like camcorders, large sums of money, and leads for the dogs,
the equipment that might be used to find them, like binoculars, kind of thing.
Anything that can be related to finding or in pursuit of hares or other animals.
Okay. The police don't have enough evidence to charge them, but they can seize the suspected
coursing dog for the day.
Before being escorted out of the county, one of the coursers agrees to speak with me, so long as we hide his
identity. So what are you actually doing today?
Where have you come from?
We've come from Essex.
Okay, so quite a long way.
Yeah. Yeah.
If anyone come, we say we're sorry, blah, blah, blah.
But there's so much animosity against hair coursers now.
I mean. And I mean, you look how many police are about.
Is it the sport that.
.. is that what keeps you coming back to it?
Yeah, it's a sport.
It's... It's all about the dog, really.
How good the dog is.
There's no explaining it.
You know, I got up early, early this morning, and my wife's words to me as I left
was, you are mad.
Really? Yeah. So she doesn't like that you're doing this?
No, no. I suppose it's like someone who smoke cigarettes, someone that has a drink, someone that
takes drugs.
So it really feels like a like almost an addiction.
It's an addiction. Yeah.
It's something that, that you love that much you can't control it.
I guess some people might say the issue that they would have is the is the way of killing the hare is with a dog
and that's partly what the people think is bad.
What we do, we put one dog on one hare.
Not two. Not three.
It catches it and it dies.
If you've got two dogs, sometimes they've you know, they're pulling the hare.
The hare screams and it does make it barbaric.
So you think there's there's more than one type of hare coarser?
Oh there is, yeah, yeah.
A lot of a lot of the trouble is from younger guys, you know what I mean?
They don't care whatever.
And I know a few of them, other cars doing hundred miles an hour through little
villages and stuff like that.
It's just crazy. We all get tarred with the same brush, but,
some of us, the dogs and the hare coursing it means so much to us.
That was a really interesting situation.
They see it as that there's two different types of hare courser.
There's those guys who are doing in their mind the right way.
And then there's another type of hare courser who are involved in serious
criminality.
I want to find out more about this other kind of hare courser.
Farmers are among those on the receiving end of this crime.
The damage to their land alone can cost thousands of pounds,
and they're often faced with intimidation and even assault if they try to stop it from happening.
I'm going to meet a farmer who deals with this on a daily basis.
She's asked to remain anonymous.
You have a lovely home.
Thank you.
How long have you lived in this area?
My husband's family have owned the farm for nearly 100 years.
But it's a good life in many ways.
Apart from what we're here to discuss today.
So how long has hare coursing been affecting your life?
I would say the last ten, twelve years.
It's been affecting our lives, but the last four or five years
have been absolutely awful.
Up to five times a week, sometimes several times a day.
There's gangs of them with their dogs.
That was walking on the farm.
That's the remains of a hare from the day before.
They do scream when they're attacked by the dog.
It is a real shrill noise that stays with you.
There's just no words to describe how cruel they are.
And what what does that actually do that affects you?
The things they've said they're going to do to me are unbelievable.
Are you okay to say some of the things that they say to you like?
Well, the personal things I don't think I'd better repeat.
But they'll burn your house down.
They'll kill your dog.
And you do fear for your life.
They've tried to run me over twice.
Last time was last December.
Tried to hit you with a car?
Yep.
Why do you think they are doing that?
Because I was trying to film them.
Why should I live my life feeling violated?
Every time my grandchildren are here they like to go for a walk, the little one still in his pushchair.
So if I push him up the road, I'm always on alert.
Who's about? Because it's many times you're just not sure it's safe.
I also meet with Malcolm, another farmer who's fallen victim to hare coursing to hear his experiences.
What's the worst interaction you've had with one of the coursers.
This field behind us.
There was a gang of about seven of them and there were two vehicles.
They were coursing on the field and one of them spat at me.
My neighbour, he nearly got run off his field into a
drain. And another, another neighbouring farmer, he got hit with a vehicle.
So you're worried for your life?
Sometimes. Some people they...
Well, yeah, it can be a bit like that.
It's a it's another worry.
Every day.
It's not fair.
And it's not fair. No.
These people have lived and worked on this land for a really long time.
And whichever way you want to look at it, living alongside hare coursers has made their life
really, really difficult.
And they live in fear a lot of the time.
I head back to the police station to visit the dog that was seized yesterday.
I want to find out what role the dogs play in this crime and what can happen to them once they finish their coursing career.
Don't be scared.
So what will happen after he finishes being used for hare coursing.
Typically, a coursing dog will be abandoned when it's coursing life is over.
How much can these dogs be worth?
For a good dog they pay thousands of pounds.
Thousands of pounds. So how important are these dogs to the coursers?
They're vital they're vital to the coursers, we've had incidents in the past couple of years where we've seized dogs from acting
coursing events. The dogs have been taken to the kennels that we use.
And they've only got GPS trackers or they've been followed, but the kennels have been broken into
that night or the next day,
and it's only been the dogs that we've seized that have been stolen.
So we assume it's the owners recovering the dogs by burglary.
Breaking in and taking the dogs back?
Taking the dogs.
God, so they'll go to pretty intense lengths to get the dogs?
Yeah, they need the dogs.
They want their dogs.
Aw, see you later, mate.
I'm going to meet Chief Inspector Phil Vickers.
He heads up Operation Galileo,
a UK wide operation which looks to tackle Hare coursing.
I'm hoping he can share with me the national picture and shed light on just how serious the criminals involved in hare
coursing can be.
What does modern day hare coursing actually look like?
It's very different to what it was maybe 200 years ago.
The people who are involved in it now are organised criminals.
They plan their offending.
What we see now is that there is a significant amount of gambling that takes place.
Maybe with the advent of the internet, one of the things that we see is that hare coursing is livestreamed.
So the gambling takes place remotely and that has changed the nature of the offending.
And for those that are involved, it means that they can they can earn significant amounts of money.
What kinds of figures are we talking here in terms of how much money is at play?
Evidence shows that it's in the tens of thousands of pounds.
We talked to someone recently who was saying that,
in the course of a year, a single good hare coursing dog had earned him £32,000.
How big can this get?
What other kinds of crimes are these people involved in?
We've seen examples of hare coursers that we know in Lincolnshire have been prosecuted for drugs
importation offences,
so millions of pounds in terms of that area of their criminality.
And hare coursing was simply their blood sport, albeit offending, of choice.
Often they will use the the same communication methods for their other criminality they might be involved in
to organise hare coursing.
So people who are linked to hare coursing by using those networks you could be bringing down
criminals. Involved in huge drug supply chains as well
. What would you say to someone who might say it's just a crime against a hare?
We've worked with academics who are looking at the hare population across the country, and we've seen that there
have been significant declines in areas where there's been intense hare coursing.
The hare is an important part of the rural community.
It's pretty devastating to be honest.
When you look at the way the hares suffer as part of this offending,
There is a significant cruelty aspect to this and the offenders are not bothered by that.
When we look at our offenders, we will often find that their cruelty to animals is reflected in their cruelty to
people as well.
Do you think people in the wider UK have any idea how big of an issue hare coursing is?
No, I don't think they do.
I think that this still has very much a a rural poaching
romantic notion to it.
And that's not the case.
It has a real impact.
This is organised crime in rural communities.
It's been eye opening to see what modern day hare coursing looks like.
This is a huge issue, not just in Lincolnshire but for the whole of the UK.
It's affecting our police forces, our farmers and our rural communities.
And of course our wild hares who we're at a real risk of losing.
But there may be some good news on the horizon.
The UK Government have just announced that they're introducing new legislation to crack down on hare coursing.
With tougher sentencing and improving police powers, including unlimited fines, dog ownership
bans and up to six months in prison.
But if hare coursing has become the blood sport of choice for the organised criminal,
it remains to be seen whether this will be enough to finally stop it.