An anti-hunt protester who got a hunt supporter in a headlock when a disorder broke out in Lacock has been acquitted after the police failed to investigate the incident properly.
59-year-old Andrew Purbrick appeared at Swindon Magistrates’ Court today (Friday, 30 September) for a trial, having previously denied a Section 4 of the Public Order Act offence.
The charge came following a large-scale brawl involving hunt supporters and anti-hunt protesters in Lacock, as the Avon Vale Hunt passed through the High Street on 27 December last year.
Footage of the incident was published on YouTube by a freelance videographer. At one minute and one second into a montage of clips, Purbrick is seen putting another man into a headlock.
However, his barrister Aarif Abraham raised self-defence as his client’s defence – stating that the defendant was trying to protect a woman who had been pushed over during the disorder.
The YouTube video showed a woman being pushed to the ground before Purbrick touches her arm in support, and moments later carried out the act that landed him in court.
Mr Abraham raised concerns about the general policing of the event and subsequent investigation – mentioning Laura Hughes, a member of the Avon Vale Hunt who attended the disorder as a uniformed police officer, but failed to activate her body-worn camera and only provided a statement nine months afterwards.
He told District Judge Joanna Dickens that no body-worn camera footage was obtained from the other officer at the scene – a firearms officer who is now signed off work due to illness.
Mr Abraham says that Wiltshire Police failed to attempt to gather any statements or evidence from known witnesses, nor did they obtain the full footage of the incident from the videographer.
Prosecutor Tom Power said that the Crown Prosecution Service relies solely on the YouTube video.
But Judge Dickens said the police had “duty to investigate and obtain further information” after the defendant denied the allegation in his custody interview.
Mr Power said it wasn’t necessary because Purbrick had been “caught red-handed” in the video.
Mr Abraham’s colleague, barrister Peter Cruickshank, asked for the trial to be terminated on the basis that the case was “inherently weakness and vague”, and without the moments leading up to the incident disclosed as evidence, the Judge would not be able to be sure – beyond all reasonable doubt – that the defendant is guilty.
He added that even Isobel Jenkins, a complex crime investigator at Wiltshire Police, has “not done any investigating”, and only found the video on YouTube and saved it.
“It’s very unusual, as you said, it’s trial by YouTube”, Mr Cruickshank commented.
Judge Dickens said the Crown’s case was “light on evidence”
She said: “Ultimately the evidence is pretty thin, when I say thin, wafer thin, and it is just about enough to get past a half-time submission and not much more.
“In terms of Mr Purbrick, the prosecution has to prove he was intending to cause unlawful violence and he says he was acting in self-defence.
“The prosecution would have to disprove self-defence and the prosecution case is not going to get any better and there is no other evidence for the prosecution to support that it wasn’t in self-defence.
“While there is just about a case to answer, the evidence is wafer thin and it won’t get any better, and for those reasons I won’t be able to be sure they were not acting in self-defence.
“There is clear evidence that Purbrick was helping a woman… the prosecution case isn’t going to get any better.”
Judge Dickens aquitted Purbrick, of Dilton Marsh, and handed down a not guilty verdict before saying: “I have some surprise of how this passed the interest of justice test.”
His co-defendant, 53-year-old Adrian Earl, of Calne, who was accused of hitting a phone out of a hunt supporter’s hand, was also acquitted.
At a previous hearing, hunt supporters William Renny, 30, Callum Lewis, 26, and Evan Lorne, 18, pleaded guilty to a Section 4 of the Public Order Act charge.
Renny was ordered to pay a total of £677 in fines, a victim surcharge and costs. Lewis was told to pay £693 and Lorne £319.
