I am writing in response to John Atkins' letter, "Is she really pro-fox or just anti-hunting?" (April 21).

He accuses Jaine Wilde of not really being concerned about the welfare of red foxes but has some sort of persecution complex against the riding community (The Argus, April 15).

Jaine and Simon Wilde are compassionate individuals, fighting peacefully for a more civilised world.

The primordial urges of those who indulge in the hunting of wild animals cannot be allowed to taint civilisation.

Legislation preventing this wanton killing must not be impeded on the pretext of protecting "Liberty and Livelihood" as was the case during the Countryside Alliance march in September 2002.

The utilitarian philosopher John Stuart Mill's central principle on liberty, which forms a strong part of our unwritten constitution, is that "the only purpose for which power can be rightly exercised over any member of a civilised community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others."

Their basic symbolic use of their quarry to intimidate Jaine and Simon Wilde ("Who are the hunted?", The Argus, September 4, 2002), manifestly demonstrates why it is necessary to prevent those who hunt continuing their acts of premeditated violence in the name of "country pursuits".

The Government has the opportunity to deliver the coup de grace of hunting before the next election.

This will stop the huntsmen dead in their tracks, affording wild animals and the likes of the Wildes protection from the perpetrators of such crimes of cruelty.

-David Hammond, Hassocks