PARLIAMENTARY WRITTEN QUESTION
Hare Coursing: Convictions (22 February 2018)

To ask the Attorney General, how many prosecutions for offences relating to hare coursing led to a conviction in each police area in England in each year from 2014 to the last year for which data is available.

Asked by:
Dr Caroline Johnson (Conservative)

The Hunting Act 2004 introduced a prohibition against hare coursing. Under Section 5 of the Act, a person commits an offence if they participate in, attend, knowingly facilitate, or permit land owned by them to be used in a hare coursing event.

The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) maintains a central record of the number of offences in which a prosecution commenced, including offences charged by way of Section 5 of the Hunting Act 2004 which covers England and Wales.

The table below shows the number of these offences prosecuted and the police force area, in each of the last three years.

-	2014-2015	2015-2016	2016-2017
Essex	0	4	0
Norfolk	6	0	6
Sussex	0	0	2
	6	4	8
Data Source: CPS Case Management Information System

There is no indication of the number of individual defendants prosecuted for these offences or the final outcome of the prosecution proceeding or if the charged offence was the substantive charge at the time of finalisation. It is often the case that defendants will be prosecuted for more than one offence in the same set of proceedings.

Answered by:
Sir Robert Buckland (Conservative)
28 February 2018