I wonder if people will look back on the RSPCA prosecutions of 2012 in a hundred years time and feel the same amazement that anyone thought this kind of behaviour towards animals was acceptable as a "sport".
This seems to have been something of a test case, having been referred up to the High Court for a ruling on whether there was any case to answer; the point being that it tested how far the 1900 Act, which made cruelty to captive non-domestic animals an offence, also protected non-domestic animals kept in captivity and released for the purpose of being hunted with dogs.
Marshall Hall, the barrister defending the hunt, was something of a celebrity lawyer having led the defense in many notorious murder trials including the "Brides in the Bath" and the "Green bicycle case".
