The whole thing makes me feel sick. :dead:
Gareth Evans QC needs his n-ts putting in a wringer. How can you lose that case?
further from Birmingham;
Hunt protester cleared of manslaughter fears reprisals (Aaaaaaaaaaw - shame)
Mar 22 2010 Birmingham Post
An animal rights enthusiast who piloted a gyrocopter that killed a hunt supporter has spoken of his fear of reprisals following his acquittal for manslaughter.
The blade of Bryan Griffiths’ gyrocopter struck and killed Warwickshire Hunt member Trevor Morse on March 9 last year at Long Marston airfield.
Mr Griffiths, 55, was cleared of manslaughter by gross negligence at Birmingham Crown Court on Wednesday.
But he is now worried about reprisal attacks by hunt supporters who, he said, may feel he has not been made to pay for Mr Morse’s death.
He said: “If I had gone to prison I might have been safer because if these people felt I had received some punishment for what happened they might have let it drop.
“I would not put it past them to take it upon themselves to seek a bit of payback.
“If you go up against some of these people it can turn nasty.” (Duh)
Mr Griffiths installed CCTV at his home in Bedworth, Warwickshire, a while ago and is on a police list of priority callers.
If he sees an unfamiliar car outside his house, he takes down the registration number.
He also has metal railings running along the side of his property and has asked a neighbour with CCTV to “keep an eye on stuff”.
He fears for the safety of his wife, Dawn Griffiths, 53, as well, he said, and was particularly worried when he was incarcerated at HMP Hewell for seven weeks following his arrest and she was on her own at home.
“Ever since I started monitoring these people I was aware how they could be,” he said.
“I know that my activities were making them particularly upset. I wouldn’t say everyone in every hunt is a thug but every hunt has its element of thuggery.
“They don’t like being watched and they’ll do anything they can to try to stop people watching them.”
But Mr Morse’s death will stay with him for the rest of his life, he added.
“A man died and that’s not going to be something you forget very quickly.
“At Christmas the thought crossed my mind that this was going to be his partner’s first Christmas without him.”
A two-week trial heard that Mr Morse’s head was cleaved “from top to bottom” by the rear rotor of the gyrocopter as he tried to stop it from taking off.
The jury heard that the 48-year-old was killed instantly when he refused to move out of the way as Mr Griffiths, who had been monitoring the Warwickshire Hunt from the air, drove towards him.
It was claimed in court that Mr Griffiths believed he had been shot at from the ground and feared a gang was on the way to attack him.
Mr Griffiths described feeling “numb” when he saw Mr Morse on the ground and realised he was dead.
“I couldn’t believe what had happened,” he said. “The last 12 months have probably been the most traumatic of my life.
“Obviously it’s been totally traumatic for Trevor Morse’s family as well. He and I disagreed on fox-hunting but somebody dying is a different thing altogether.”
It is too early for him to say whether he will continue to monitor hunts, he said.
His hunt-monitoring future will partly depend on whether the hunting ban is repealed under a Conservative government.
Nor does he know yet whether he will be able to continue to fly his gyrocopter.
Although he would be “really disappointed” not to, he is awaiting interviews with the Civil Aviation Authority and his insurance company, who may have other ideas.
“I spent a lot of time and money learning to fly and I love it,” he said. “I go every time the sun is shining, not just to monitor hunts.”
The hunt on March 9 last year was the fifth he had monitored since buying the aircraft in summer 2008.
Mr Griffiths, a self-employed heating engineer, also spoke of the relief he felt when the jury acquitted him after seven and a half hours of deliberations.
“I always felt I was innocent but with a jury you just don’t know,” he said. “On Wednesday I had a bag packed in case they did cart me off.
“I was fully prepared for the jury to come back with a different decision.”
He has received a lot of support from sympathetic members of the public since he was charged, he added.
“When I was in prison I had more than 100 letters of support from people,” he said. “I also had one letter from someone in California calling me a murdering thug.”
Sam Butler, a Warwickshire Hunt master, said: “At no stage has anyone in the Warwickshire Hunt ever discussed using any form of physical action against hunt monitors.”
He described Mr Morse as “one of the most gentle men” he had ever met and said the Hunt was “devastated and very upset” by his loss.
He added: “It was Mr Griffiths who was on trial, not Trevor Morse or hunting.”
Y’know that’s the next best thing to having a prison sentence; he’s now absolutely paranoid of reprisal.
I hope they pull his pilot license too. It would be so sad for him not to be able to fly anymore… riiiight.
The case was nothing to do with property laws - and FWIW most people here are astonished and appalled that the pilot was acquitted - it tells you a lot about the bizarre thought process of juries, and not a lot about the English legal system, in my opinion…
I don’t know whether its going to appeal - I hope so, because it seems a perverse decision to me.
What a group of extreme disasterists… :no:
The man should’ve moved out of the way that’s obvious.
The other man should’ve called the police to escort the man off his property rather than starting the blades that’s also obvious.
The one man died that seems like a harsh punishment the other man walked. He really should’ve been charged with man slaughter. He accidently killed someone makes sense to me.
Hw about becoming familiar with the facts BEFORE posting a comment ?
okay, I have never hunted but I have a couple of friends that do here in the states. First off, I have some questions.
How often does a hunt ACTUALLY corner and kill a fox?
How often do the hounds just follow the trail and never find an actual fox?
How often do the hunts mark the scent and never go out with intentions of looking for a live fox?
Isn’t it somewhat true that some wise old foxes kind of enjoy leading the hounds on a wild goose chase?
Wouldn’t the best way to monitor a hunt be to ACTUALLY ride along with the hunt, like as a designated referee or steward?
I was raised in a family whose father and brother hunted. I don’t hunt only because I find it mind numbingly boring to sit in a tree stand and stare at nothing while freezing my bum off nor could I personally kill something for sport. However, I respect my family’s right and every ethical hunter’s right to do it. ( I said ethical). I also know that without the financial and legal support of said hunting groups, the developers would have cart blanche to develop important wildlife corridors in my state.
I would think, rather naively, that most good fox hunt groups want to keep the land natural so ALL wildlife can prosper in spite of human incroachment. So they gallavant over hill and dale a few weekends a year and slop after a fox whilst sipping spirits from their paddock boot. Isn’t that better than loosing the habitat alltogether for developments?
I also am married to a professional pilot. This man should never fly a plane again in our opin. Can you say vehicular homocide? I think this is a ten commandments of flying. Thou shall not kill anyone with thy plane…
please excuse my ignorance on this topic, Again, I have never hunted but I see it as falling under the relm of sport hunting. It’s a person’s right to hunt anything as long as they are doing it responsibly, no? I guess there in lies the question of a person’s definition of responsibly.
The pilot got ONE negative letter vs. 100 positive letters.
Is he just playing up the paranoia/fear aspect to make the hunters look like a bunch of thugs???
Several years ago I worked part-time for a unionized company. There was a strike voted in and one of the union stewards was patrolling and picketing in front of the business (to make sure no union workers crossed the line). When he was interviewed by the local news station he made a comment about reprisals or fearing for his safety, or some such crap (implying that company thugs were out to get him). Lie, lie, lie, lie, lie. And laughable, too.
There were no company thugs, union workers and management got along well, and it is a pretty peaceful community. That particular steward was an ass pretty much all the time he worked there.
I wonder if the pilot is doing the same sort of thing. Or, he may just be feeling guilty and deep down feels that he deserves to be punished.
Apparently not in England. This in the relevant parts of an article that may be reposted freely. It is interesting as it relates to this case. This is the article about a man in England who was threatened in his own home and because he defended himself, he is spending his life in prison. Seems even odder in light of this decision that is so inconsistent with everything I’ve read about coming out of England. There was a second article about golfers being threatend by a gang and going to jail because they refused to give up their golf clubs (which could have been used as a weapon by their attackers). This appears to be a murder is very inconsistent with those cases.
"You’re sound asleep when you hear a thump outside your
bedroom door. Half-awake, and nearly paralyzed with fear, you hear muffled whispers. At least two people have broken into your house and are moving your way. With your heart pumping, you reach down beside your bed and pick up your shotgun. You rack a shell into the chamber, then inch toward the door and open it. In the darkness, you make out two shadows.
One holds something that looks like a crowbar. When the intruder brandishes it as if to strike, you raise the shotgun
and fire… The blast knocks both thugs to the floor.
One writhes and screams while the second man crawls to the front door and lurches outside. As you pick up the telephone to call police, you know you’re in trouble.
In your country, most guns were outlawed years before, and the few That are privately owned are so stringently regulated as to make them useless. Yours was never registered. Police arrive and inform you that the
second burglar has died. They arrest you for First
Degree Murder and Illegal Possession of a Firearm.
When you talk to your attorney, he tells you not to
worry: authorities will probably plea the case down to
manslaughter.
“What kind of sentence will I get?” you ask.
“Only ten-to-twelve years,” he replies, as if that’s nothing. “Behave yourself, and you’ll be out in seven.”
The next day, the shooting is the lead story in the local
newspaper. Somehow, you’re portrayed as an
eccentric vigilante while the two men you shot are
represented as choirboys. Their friends and relatives
can’t find an unkind word to say about them.
Buried deep down in the article, authorities acknowledge
that both “victims” have been arrested numerous times. But the next day’s headline says it all: “Lovable Rogue Son didn’t Deserve to Die.” The thieves have been transformed from career criminals into Robin Hood-type pranksters. As the days wear on, the story takes wings. The national media picks it up, then the international media. The surviving burglar has become a folk hero…
Your attorney says the thief is preparing to sue you, and
he’ll probably win. The media publishes reports that your home has been burglarized several times in the past and that you’ve been critical of local police for their lack of effort in apprehending the suspects. After the last break-in, you told your neighbor that you would be prepared next time. The District Attorney uses this to allege that you were lying in wait for the burglars.
A few months later, you go to trial. The charges haven’t been reduced, as your lawyer had so confidently predicted. When you take the stand, your anger at the injustice of it all works against you. Prosecutors paint a picture of you as a mean, vengeful man. It doesn’t take long for the jury to convict you of all charges.
The judge sentences you to life in prison.
This case really happened.
On August 22, 1999, Tony Martin of Emneth, Norfolk, Rngland, killed one burglar and wounded a second. In April, 2000, he was convicted and is now serving a life term.
How did it become a crime to defend one’s own life in the
once great British Empire?
It started with the Pistols Act of 1903. This seemingly reasonable law forbade selling pistols to minors or felons and established that handgun sales were to be made only to those who had a license. The Firearms Act of 1920 expanded licensing to include not only handguns but all firearms except shotguns.
Later laws passed in 1953 and 1967 outlawed the carrying of any weapon by private citizens and mandated the registration of all shotguns.
Momentum for total handgun confiscation began in earnest after the Hungerford mass shooting in 1987. Michael Ryan, a mentally disturbed Man with a Kalashnikov rifle, walked down the streets shooting everyone he saw. When the smoke cleared, 17 people were dead.
The British public, already de-sensitized by eighty years of “gun control”, demanded even tougher restrictions. (The seizure of all privately owned handguns was the objective even though Ryan used a rifle.)
Nine years later, at Dunblane, Scotland, Thomas Hamilton used a semi-automatic weapon to murder 16 children and a teacher at a public school.
For many years, the media had portrayed all gun owners as
mentally unstable or worse, criminals. Now the press had a real kook with which to beat up law-abiding gun owners. Day after day, week after week, the media gave up all pretense of objectivity and demanded a total ban on all handguns. The Dunblane Inquiry, a few months later, Sealed the fate of the few sidearm still owned by private citizens.
During the years in which the British government incrementally took away most gun rights, the notion that a citizen had the right to armed self-defense came to be seen as vigilantism. Authorities refused to grant gun licenses to people who were threatened, claiming that self-defense was no longer considered a reason to own a gun.
Citizens who shot burglars or robbers or rapists were charged while the real criminals were released.
Indeed, after the Martin shooting, a police spokesman was
quoted as saying, “We cannot have people taking the law into their own hands.”
All of Martin’s neighbors had been robbed numerous times,
and several elderly people were severely injured in beatings by young thugs who had no fear of the consequences. Martin himself, a collector of antiques, had seen most of his collection trashed or stolen by burglars.
When the Dunblane Inquiry ended, citizens who owned handguns were given three months to turn them over to local authorities. Being good British subjects, most people
obeyed the law. The few who didn’t were visited by police and threatened with ten-year prison sentences if they didn’t comply. Police later bragged that they’d taken nearly 200,000 handguns from private citizens.
How did the authorities know who had handguns?
The guns had been registered and licensed.
Kinda like cars. "
Here is a link to the golf club case I referenced above:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/lawandorder/5310445/Golfers-arrested-after-fighting-off-gang-attempting-to-steal-clubs.html
Okay, my father was a pilot. I flew with him many times. Before an engine is started, the pilot yells “Clear”.
That means, get the heck out of the way. From what I read the pilot did just that.
I think the guy on the ground also contributed to his own death by daring the pilot to start the helicopter, or whatever they call them over there.
He knew to get out of the way, but was cocky and stood there playing “chicken”. Stupid.
It’s like someone standing on a train track and surprised when they get ran over…:dead:
It comes down to personal responsibility. The guy chose to stand there. Period.
In the US FAA, this falls under careless and reckless operation. Don’t know what kind of system they have in his country but…
So what you are saying is this.
If you have someone threatening you and you are sitting in a car, you can yell out the window “Clear” and then drive the guy over?
Yelling Clear does not clear you of the responsibility of what may happen if your plane is in fact NOT clear. It’s called the Responsibility of the PIC. Ultimate responsibility for the safe operation of the aircraft. This was not a case of someone wondering blindly out onto an airfield and getting mowed down by a plane in take off. This guy deliberately moved his plane knowing that a person was not a safe distance away. I dont’ give a rat’s a$$ fi he thought the guy was going to kick it a$$. He’s a chicken, self proclaimed.
He had already demonstrated his disrespect of the craft by using it to “buzz” members of a hunt on horseback. Then he uses his plane as a bullying tactic to get a member of the hunt out of his way? seriously, the entire gang that started this whole monitoring with a plane garbage should be drug into court for reckless endangerment. If i had a child participating on a hunt and I found out that my child was put in danger by a plane spooking the horse, I would be a rabid bear in stopping this form of protest. Yes, I think that those that hunt are passionate about keeping their right to the sport. But I also think that once the hunt members were put in personal danger by the plane harassing the hunt, it becomes an issue of personal safety. I don’t care how passionate you are about an idea, you have no right to do harm to another human being, no matter what side of this fight you’re on.That’s why we call it CIVIL-ization.
Last March Antony Spencer, one of six masters of the Warwickshire hunt, drew up plans at a Cotswold village pub to tackle the gyrocopter problem. Mr Morse was under orders to follow it when it went to refuel and block it from take-off to allow Mr Spencer to arrive. On the final day of the hunt, Mr Morse and Julie Sargeant, both responsible for keeping hounds off the road, followed it to the airfield, where it had permission to refuel.
The video showed he twice motioned for Mr Morse to move aside. Peter Bunce, a 70-year-old hunt monitor who had brought the fuel and was filming the stand-off, could be heard asking Mr Morse to move, adding that he had no right to detain anyone. Mr Morse shook his head and stood his ground.
So, no one in the Hunt Club was responsible for their own actions? They purposely planned ahead of time to stop the chopper from taking off after refueling.
They followed it to the airfield where it had permission to refuel.
The video showed the pilot motioning for Mr. Morse to move out of the way.
He was also asked verbally to move out of the way.
Sorry, but he was arrogant, cocky, belligerent, and obviously not too bright.
I didn’t realize that the Hunt’s controlled air space as well…:rolleyes:
It is called personal responsibility. He made the choice to stand there. Period.
Edited to add: If you can’t handle your horse or your horse can’t handle the sights and sounds of the unexpected, then you probably shouldn’t be out there.
You were there ?
alright Huntertwo, can you tell me what the hunt was doing that was so terrible that the anti-hunt group had the right to harass them?
And is helicoptor training in your list of things to despook your horses too? Because last I checked, being followed at low altitude by an aircraft was not something that fell under just the “unexpected” in most books on horsemanship. Wait, let me check my extensive library…nope, no chapters there about training your horse to a helicoptor hovering over it’s head. Following at low altitude is harassment.
In fact, isn’t this how many modern day cowboys out west herd the BLM herds off the federal lands? Yea, I think it is. I wonder why they do that? Oh Yea! BECAUSE IT MAKES THEM RUN LIKE SCALDED DOGS!
And you are still evading the fact that, regardless if Morses actions are seen by some as cocky, beligerent, blah blah blah… that does not excuse pilot of his action to diliberately take the matter into his own hands and take a man’s life.
Who in his right mind would stand next to the blades of a helicopter about to start being piloted by someone who is clearly hostile to you?
Somebody who had had enough of being harassed by said gyrocopter.
[QUOTE=Huntertwo;4781608]
The video showed he twice motioned for Mr Morse to move aside. Peter Bunce, a 70-year-old hunt monitor who had brought the fuel and was filming the stand-off, could be heard asking Mr Morse to move, adding that he had no right to detain anyone. Mr Morse shook his head and stood his ground.
So, no one in the Hunt Club was responsible for their own actions? They purposely planned ahead of time to stop the chopper from taking off after refueling.
They followed it to the airfield where it had permission to refuel.
The video showed the pilot motioning for Mr. Morse to move out of the way.
He was also asked verbally to move out of the way.
Sorry, but he was arrogant, cocky, belligerent, and obviously not too bright.
I didn’t realize that the Hunt’s controlled air space as well…:rolleyes:
It is called personal responsibility. He made the choice to stand there. Period. [/QUOTE]
So, if Mr. Morse didn’t comply with the request to move out of the way, it was then okay for the pilot to mow him down?
Where’s the pilot’s “personal responsibility” in all of this? It sounds like a game of chicken, but one of the players had a dangerous machine while the other was unarmed.
Sad all the way around…the pilot’s commentary after the verdict doesn’t sound like he’s very sorry at all.
The pilot should thank his lucky starts that he wasn’t on trial in the U.S.
Don’t know the laws in G.B., but here in the states, a civil trial would be a slam dunk for Mr. Morse’s family.
[QUOTE=Huntertwo;4781608]
Last March Antony Spencer, one of six masters of the Warwickshire hunt, drew up plans at a Cotswold village pub to tackle the gyrocopter problem. Mr Morse was under orders to follow it when it went to refuel and block it from take-off to allow Mr Spencer to arrive. On the final day of the hunt, Mr Morse and Julie Sargeant, both responsible for keeping hounds off the road, followed it to the airfield, where it had permission to refuel.
The video showed he twice motioned for Mr Morse to move aside. Peter Bunce, a 70-year-old hunt monitor who had brought the fuel and was filming the stand-off, could be heard asking Mr Morse to move, adding that he had no right to detain anyone. Mr Morse shook his head and stood his ground.
So, no one in the Hunt Club was responsible for their own actions? They purposely planned ahead of time to stop the chopper from taking off after refueling.
They followed it to the airfield where it had permission to refuel.
The video showed the pilot motioning for Mr. Morse to move out of the way.
He was also asked verbally to move out of the way.
Sorry, but he was arrogant, cocky, belligerent, and obviously not too bright.
I didn’t realize that the Hunt’s controlled air space as well…:rolleyes:
It is called personal responsibility. He made the choice to stand there. Period.
Edited to add: If you can’t handle your horse or your horse can’t handle the sights and sounds of the unexpected, then you probably shouldn’t be out there.[/QUOTE]
Huntertwo, it is simply immoral and illegal to intentionally take an action that you can reasonably foresee will cause the death of another just because you say “move”. In this same situation, in your opinion, if these twe men were on a bridge and one refused to move out of the way, the other could take out a gun and kill him? It is the same thing, and I strongly disagree that such action should be legal. If a pedestrian is in a crosswalk and you tell him to walk faster, can you hit him with your car if he does not? That’s not the way the law is written in American and certainly not in England where you can’t even kill someone who has broken into your house with the intent do you you harm in the middle of the night.
ps. You may want to check out George Bernard Shaw’s other quotes before you quote him on anything - he was a pretty bad guy.
