Court hear couple filmed Peter Easterby coursing

TWO undercover animal welfare activists secretly filmed an alleged hare coursing-event on land owned by three-time championjumps trainer Peter Easterby, a court heard on Monday.

Peter Easterby: former trainer

  PICTURE: racingpostpix.com  

The former trainer, charged under his birth name of Miles Henry Easterby, is accused of permitting land to be used for hare-coursing and attending a hare-coursing event in March 2007.

Easterby, 79, went on trial at Scarborough Magistrates Court with Major John Shaw,56, who is charged with the same offences.

The court was told Michelle Bryan and Joe Hashman posed as a couple in attending the event on farmland near Malton, owned by Easterby and Shaw.

Covert footage of the activities shot by Hashman with a camera attached to a pair of binoculars was shown to the court, but he admitted he had not taken notes as he feared it would have raised suspicion.

Hashman claimed over the two days there were possibly morethan 40 occasions of hare-coursing taking place.

Hare-coursing was banned by the Hunting Act, which came into force in 2005, but former participants now take part in the permissible sport of Greyhound Field Trials, run under strict rules.

Hashman said the organisers had made "cosmetic changes" to the way the event was being held. Easterby and Shaw both deny the charges. The case continues.