Wiltshire Police get new kit to tackle hare coursing problem

As autumn arrives, a new season begins in Wiltshire for the illegal blood sport of hare coursing.

Its origins go back centuries, but nowadays it involves gangs with dogs and 4x4s chasing down hares across farmland, leaving a wake of criminal damage, intimidation and violence.

The chases are often streamed over the internet as bets are placed on which dog will catch the hare.

This year Wiltshire Police has finally kitted up to tackle the problem.

• Listen: The blood sport terrorising Wiltshire

Hare coursing was made illegal in the UK in 2005, but that hasn't deterred criminal gangs, who have been a growing problem in rural counties like Wiltshire in recent years.

I joined Wiltshire Police for the first big operation of the new hare coursing season.

Part of Wiltshire's small rural crime team, Sgt Goacher says hare coursing has a 'huge impact' on farmers

"The A303 is commonly known as the 'hare coursing corridor' with its vast open farmland areas and easy getaway," said PC Mark Jackson from Wiltshire's Rural Crime Team, as he shows me their drone, newly equipped with a thermal camera to see in the dark from above.

"We've had incidences of landowners having their vehicles rammed, people with knives wearing balaclavas," PC Rob Goacher said, as he scanned the horizon with a new thermal telescope.

"It isn't just chasing hares, this has a huge impact on our farming community," he added.

Wiltshire cut back on its rural team in recent years, but now Wiltshire's Police Commissioner Philip Wilkinson is determined to turn that tide with more officers and specialist kit.

Wiltshire has new thermal imaging kit on drones and handheld telescopes to help scan the vast Salisbury Plain

He told me he has seen through the National Crime Agency hare coursing "being live streamed into China where people are betting tens of thousands of dollars".

He said the people doing it are "serious criminals" who pose "a very real threat to those of us who live in the countryside".

Helping to be the police's eyes and ears is a small group of local people with direct experience of what hare coursers do.

I agreed not to say exactly who nor where they are, as the gangs are known to retaliate against those who try to stop them.

One describes being spotted by coursers and chased "three or four miles of me driving flat out" and believes "they were intent on giving me a bloody good kicking" had he not taken refuge in one of Wiltshire's military bases.

Another described being surrounded early one morning by hare coursing vehicles, only escaping trouble when by chance a group of motorcyclists happened to be passing and came to his aid.

Wiltshire's Police Commissioner has seen hare coursing live-streamed over the internet with bets placed as far away as China

They welcomed Wiltshire's new attention to the subject, but point to the fact barely any Wiltshire Police vehicles are equipped to go off road.

"Yes there's more police presence, more effort," said one, "there's money coming into it, but is there enough? Nowhere near enough."