Court told how hunt dogs mauled cat to death and bit man on the finger

In addition to the fines, 30-year-old Jack Harris was ordered to pay £1,200 costs and a £15 offender levy after District Judge Rosie Watters convicted him on two counts of being the keeper of a dog which attacked.

In a brief hearing conducted in the absence of Harris, a prosecuting lawyer outlined to Lisburn Magistrates’ Court how Harris had been employed by Iveagh Hunt Club as a hunt master on November 25 2020 but that the 30-40 hounds he was in charge of had been trespassing on other lands.

One of those properties was a garden of house on the Dromara Road in Hillsborough where the pack cornered a cat called Jessie and killed it before the carcass was lifted “by the hind legs” and taken away by an unknown person.

A short time later, a man was in the garden of his home on the Edentrillick Road when a number of hounds jumped through a boundary river into his property, one of them biting his finger as it ran on.

The lawyer for Lisburn City and Castlereagh Council said while charges had been brought against Iveagh Hunt Club, Banbridge, and two of its members, those charges were withdrawn earlier yesterday and the lawyer explained that was because “the club provided evidence regarding the process they used to engage and employ Mr Harris as the hunt master”.

“He was the owner and keeper of the dogs on the day in question and so he is the man responsible,” said the lawyer.

The judge heard that Harris, from Harkaway Cottage in Tettcott, Devon, had been written to and he had confirmed being notified of the hearing but he had not attended court.

The council’s lawyer claimed that in the face of the charges, “we say he fled to England” where he has set up a new hunt club but that in any event, he had been tracked down and served with papers.