LETTER: Royal Mail puts profits before people

Dear Editor - News that the Royal Mail has doubled its profits over the last six months while over 1,500 post offices are to be shut down will incense your readers.
Royal Mail’s round of closures was based on economic viability, highlighting the hypocrisy of this £177 million profit.
The Countryside Alliance has campaigned hard for the thousands of threatened branches.
A lack of economic viability should never have been the main reason for closures.
Post Offices form the hearts of their communities and many isolated and elderly people will be stranded without them.
Royal Mail should perhaps consider that Post Offices are about people, not profits.
Simon Hart
Chief Executive
Countryside Alliance
367 Kennington Road
London
SE11 4PT

Political award for defending country way of life

AN organisation which has championed the lifestyles of people on Exmoor and other rural areas has won a prestigious television award.
The Countryside Alliance, born out of the fight against the hunting ban and the effects of Foot and Mouth Disease, was named ‘the most inspiring political personality’ of the past 10 years in a Channel 4 News political awards programme.
It won the title for ‘its campaigns against the fox hunting ban and its defence of rural life’.
Founding president Baronnes Mallalieu QC and chairman Kate Hoey, MP, accepted the award from actor Jeremy Irons.
Baronnes Mallalieu quoted Shakespeare in describing her own Government as being guilty of the ‘insolence of office’.
She warned future administrations, of whatever colour, that there was ‘unfinished business’ in the countryside.
The ‘inspiring’ category was a special award in the annual political awards to mark Channel 4 News’ 10th anniversary.
Other shortlisted candidates included Tony Blair and Ken Livingstone.
Countryside Alliance chief executive Simon Hart said: “This win is a great shot in the arm for the Countryside Alliance at the start of 2008.
“It is clear that we were shortlisted primarily because of the hunting issue and our vocal campaigning style.
“Our ongoing tenacity and support for the hunting community will remain at the core of what we do, but Channel 4 also acknowledged our broader reach, naming our ‘defence of rural life’.
“The Countryside Alliance believes that when it comes to the defence of that rural life, it is ‘all of us or none of us’.
“This belief in unity makes the victory all the sweeter, the acclaim is for all of us.
“Everybody who has marched, signed petitions, written to their MP, volunteered or worked for the Alliance, and stoically continued to defend country sports and the rural way of life for the past decade can rightly claim this award as their own.”
The award was voted for by telephone, text, and email to decide the winner.
Spokesman for the Minehead Harriers, Mike Padgett, said: “We are so pleased that the Countryside Alliance has won this prestigious award from Channel 4 for fighting our corner, the fox hunting ban and its defence of rural life.”

• Our photograph shows Kate Hoey and Simon Hart, of the Countryside Alliance, with their Channel 4 award. Photo submitted.

Judge overturns first Exmoor hunting conviction

THE first huntsman to be prosecuted under the Hunting Act, Tony Wright, of the Exmoor Foxhounds, has had his conviction overturned on appeal.
Mr Wright, aged 53, had been found guilty in August of last year by magistrates sitting in Barnstaple of breaching section one of the Act while leading the foxhounds at Drybridge, in Devon.
The prosecution was brought by the League Against Cruel Sports, which said a hunt on April 29, 2005, allowed the hounds a ‘prolonged period of pursuit’ of a fox on two occasions.
Under the Act, all that is lawful is the exercising of hounds, chasing a scent trail, and flushing out foxes to be shot.
Mr Wright, of Exmoor Kennels, Simonsbath, was fined £500 by the magistrates and ordered to pay £250 costs.
But now, at an appeal heard in Exeter Crown Court on Friday, November 30, the conviction has been quashed.
Judge Graham Cottle allowed the appeal and said he was satisfied Mr Wright reasonably believed he had put in place safeguards which he thought would ensure compliance with the Act.
The Exmoor is one of only two fox hunts to have been prosecuted successfully.
More people have been convicted of hunting rats under the Act than have been found guilty of illegal fox hunting.
Countryside Alliance chief executive Simon Hart said: “This verdict is an absolute vindication of Tony Wright and the Exmoor Foxhounds and another nail in the coffin of the Hunting Act.
“While we celebrate this judgment, however, we must not forget why an innocent man faced with a vindictive private prosecution has had to spend over two years and two court cases to clear his name.
“The Hunting Act is not only a pointless and prejudiced piece of legislation, it is also a very bad law.
“If the courts cannot be sure what is hunting and what is not, how on earth can anybody else.
“Only by scrapping the Act can we ensure that other innocent people will not be persecuted and today’s result adds to the clear case for its repeal.”
The case has cost the League more than £100,000 to pursue, after Avon and Somerset Police refused to prosecute based on the available evidence.
Mr Wright was ‘delighted’ with the appeal result and said afterwards the Hunting Act was a ‘very difficult law to interpret’ and ‘probably not very well written for people like myself to understand’.
For the League, Mike Hobday, head of its prosecution unit, said: “We shall be taking urgent legal advice about the prospects of appealing on some of the findings of law.”
Mr Hobday described the appeal result as ‘deeply surprising’ and said he was ‘shocked and disappointed’ at the legal interpretation of the Hunting Act.

• Our photograph shows an image from a video of an Exmoor Foxhounds hunt used by the League in its prosecution. Photo submitted.