Gangs, violence and dumped dead animals: The hidden world of illegal hare hunts

Image caption, Farmers say they have been threatened by balaclava-clad hare coursers at nightByDan Ashby, Lucy Taylor and Joseph LeePublished15 minutes agoOn a remote Cambridgeshire farm, where his nearest neighbour is half a mile away, Mathew Latta was making lunch when the peace was shattered by the sound of loud exhausts.Latta ran to the window to see a convoy of more than a dozen 4x4s heading towards his farm. His iron gates were cut open with an angle grinder and concrete blocks were shifted out of the way to clear the convoy's path.

The vehicles drove right over his fields at speed, tearing up the crops and skirting the fence by the family's garden. Then more than 70 people got out of the vehicles, men dressed in military fatigues and balaclavas, cheering and playing music. Dogs were brought out on leads and began to hunt hares."

They were all stood up on their cars with binoculars," says Latta. "I would say this is 100% a properly organised coursing event, with competitors and competitive dogs. People watching the course - and watching and betting on that sport.

It was quite terrifying."Warning: This story contains images of dead animalsLatta and his family were trapped in their home. They kept calling the police, but nobody came.

His daughter, then aged seven, was terrified and kept asking: "Are these men gonna come inside, daddy?"More than three hours later, the bloodsport was finally over and the crowd dispersed. They left behind four cars, one of them a burnt-out wreck.

It emerged that, earlier that day, the convoy had rampaged through an area 20 miles (32km) long in the county, forcing other cars off the road and even robbing a petrol station.Image source, John Devine/BBC/Mathew LattaImage caption, Cars were abandoned on Mathew Latta's farm after it was taken over by hare coursersThis is the modern reality of hare coursing. It is an ancient sport where dogs such as greyhounds or lurchers are used to hunt hares, which the coursers usually scare out from the wild.

Points are awarded for the number of times the dogs force the hare to twist and turn as it runs - as well as for the kill.The sport reached a peak of popularity in the 19th Century, but went underground after it was banned in the UK in 2005.We began investigating this underworld for the BBC Radio 4 podcast Dead Rabbit after the bodies of dead hares and other animals were mysteriously dumped in two picturesque Hampshire villages in 2024.

In Awbridge, more than 20 carcasses - mostly hares and rabbits, along with a muntjac deer with a severed head - were strewn outside a primary school. Children were in tears when they arrived for lessons and found a horror-movie scene. About seven miles north, in Broughton, about 50 hares were scattered near the entrance of the village's community shop, with blood smeared on the doors and a dead barn owl and kestrel tied to the door handles.

Image source, Crown Prosecution ServiceImage caption, Dozens of dead animals were strewn in front of the village shop in BroughtonWhat our investigation found was a hidden world of highly organised illegal bloodsport events taking place in rural areas, often by lamplight in the dead of night, with trophies, big money prizes, valuable hunting dogs and sometimes even international gambling. And it is all kept secret by organised crime gangs using intimidation and violence.'A proper operation'There have been almost 9,000 reports of hare coursing across the UK in the past three years, according to police responses to Freedom of Information Act requests by the BBC.

The figures are not definitive - some incidents may have been reported more than once, while others may not have been reported at all - but in the absence of official crime figures for illegal hare coursing, they give us an indication of the scale of the problem.Cambridgeshire Constabulary says it was "very stretched" on the January day last year when Mathew Latta's farm was invaded, and the force says it did not respond the way it would have wanted. Supt Ben Martin tells us that the coursers had rampaged through the county deliberately, to distract police and send them to the wrong places.

Image source, Getty ImagesImage caption, Until the 2005 ban, hare coursing used to take place at well-attended events such as the Waterloo CupHaving been caught out, the force stepped up its efforts to investigate who was behind the illegal event, eventually arresting more than 40 people and charging 25, several of whom have now been convicted.As officers tracked down the coursers, it turned out they had come from all over the country: Lincolnshire, Leicestershire, Berkshire, north Wales. "People had come hundreds of miles to be there that day," says Martin.

"It was a proper operation."Then, after searching an address belonging to one of the arrested men, police found the trophy the coursers had been competing for - the Super 8 Cup, etched with images of dogs and hares, standing maybe 2ft (61cm) tall, about the size of the FA Cup.Th