A series of attacks have led anti-hunt campaigners to fear they have become the target of terror tactics at the hands of hardline pro-hunt activists. Karen Hoy reports.

FANATICAL bloodsports activists have launched a campaign of terror against key figures in the animal rights movement as the fight to preserve hunting turns uglier and nastier.

Pro-hunting militants have shot foxes through the throat and broken their legs before dangling carcasses outside the homes of animal welfare campaigners, including that of TV writer Carla Lane.

The head of a deer was dumped on the lawn of a family home and bloody rabbits' bodies found on the bonnets of cars in driveways.

The tactics have been stepped up as countryside rights campaigners prepare to converge on London for The Countryside Alliance Liberty and Livelihood march, which accuses the Government of trying to ruin the rural way of life.

As the event's September 22 date draws near, anti-hunt protesters fear the war of intimidation may intensify as the two sides clash over hunting.

Although there is no suggestion the people responsible for the intimidation are members of the Countryside Alliance, animal rights campaigners fear hardline hunt supporters are resorting to frightening methods in retaliation for them supporting a ban on one of the most controversial countryside traditions.

Campaigners have spent years lobbying the Government to push through legislation banning hunting with dogs, a fight which looks certain to achieve its goal.

Grisly discoveries at two Sussex addresses have been blamed on members of the pro-hunt lobby who have resorted to threats of violence in an attempt to silence opposition.

Jaine Wild, 47, who has been involved with animal rights causes since she was 18, found a deer's head in the garden of her and her husband Simon's home in Bognor.

The animal's body was thrown over a vehicle owned by the couple.

The campaign of intimidation became more violent when the Wild's shed was damaged after a petrol-soaked jumper was set alight and pushed inside six weeks later.

Mrs Wild, who started the West Sussex Badger Protection Group in 1990 and is a regular protest-er at hunt meets across Britain, said: "I have put my head on the line with the work I do but you don't expect to be targeted to this degree."

The intimidation had become more threatening with a hunt ban looming, she said.

In one incident she was knocked unconscious by a horse on a hunt in what she believes was a deliberate attack. She was forced to spend the night in hospital.

Mr Wild fears further attacks as the couple refuse to back down over their anti-hunt stance.

He said: "We never know what is round the corner.

"When we go to protest some of the people on the hunt come over to us and tell us our name and address, which is quite frightening.

"It's always on your mind. We have had to introduce some significant security measures at our home."

The couple have also received menacing telephone calls and had to call in the police.

But the Wilds are not the only members of the anti-hunting fraternity in Sussex to become the victims of intimidation.

Carla Lane, the television comedy script writer and animal rights activist, was distraught when the body of a mutilated fox was found hanging from a metal pole outside her home in Horsted Keynes, near Haywards Heath.

Miss Lane has turned her property into an animal sanctuary.

The fox had been shot in the throat. A note tied to the animal read: "Silly fool, ha, ha, ha. Here's one you can't save."

The Countryside Alliance has denounced such tactics but animal rights campaigners fear militants are intensifying their intimidatory tactics in the run up to the march.

The alliance's web site states: "Although this march will not just be about hunting, the outrage at the prospect of a ban has lit the fuse.

"This march is about rural liberty and livelihoods. Lest anyone misunderstand its purpose, we have set down a five-point charter.

"Anyone who does not subscribe to all five principles of our march - and these crucially include the right for people to decide for themselves whether they may hunt - will not be welcome on it."

A spokesman said the alliance had thousands of members and did not condone violence or intimidation.

He said: "There will be hundreds of thousands of people on the march and not all of them are there to support hunting.

"This is a cheap attempt at a smear campaign before the march."

Direct action and terror tactics have in the past been associated with anti-bloodsports and anti-vivisection extremists but the latest acts of intimidation show bloodsports enthusiasts are not above resorting to equally aggressive methods to push their point.

But while Mr and Mrs Wild and Ms Lane use legitimate and lawful methods of protest to show their opposition to what they consider cruelty, some animal rights activists have resorted to violence or threats of violence to intimidate individuals or groups they consider to be taking part in animal cruelty.

A Sussex-based serial bomb hoaxer who caused panic and fear across Britain was jailed for four years earlier this year.

One call which Neil Bartlett made from a phone box in Sussex led to 400 people being evacuated from the London Eye wheel.

Waterloo Bridge was shut and contingency plans were made to close nearby Waterloo station and the underground.

Chichester Crown Court heard Bartlett, 28, rang companies and councils telling staff the Animal Liberation front had planted incendiary devices in the toilets of their offices.

He believed all his targets were hostile to animals or were supporters of the controversial Huntingdon Life Sciences laboratory.

Bartlett of Bewley Road, Angmering, near Littlehampton, was caught when police set up a hidden camera inside a phone box in Station Road, Rustington, near Littlehampton, after several calls were traced to it.

He was arrested after arriving at the kiosk on a mountain bike.

Some activists have used direct acts of violence, including arson.

Such tactics now appear to be to favoured by some members of the pro-bloodsports brigade, even if they are not supported by the majority of the pro-bloodsports lobby.

The Countryside Alliance condemns violence as a means of promoting its support for hunting, shooting and fishing.

Its web site makes it clear it will not back down on its stance to save the hunting tradition from the hands of the progressives in Parliament but others in the pro-hunting fraternity are taking extreme action to get the message across.

The site states the London march is about rural liberty and livelihoods and describes its five main aims, saying:

"We are marching to demand that the Government:

"Defends the right of rural people to live their lives responsibly in the way they choose.

"Safeguards rural people from prejudiced attacks on hunting with dogs and all other field sports.

"Respects the values and customs of rural communities.

"Ensures any laws directed at rural people have their consent.

"Addresses the real problems of the countryside which are destroying its communities, its culture and its children's future."

The site continues: "We need to make quite clear to the Government the intensity of feeling prior to the Queen's Speech in November.

"Secondly, we need to make a major political statement prior to the closure of the announced consultation period and thirdly we need the Government and those in Parliament who oppose hunting to realise that our resolve is absolute and that we are a political force that will not give in."

As legislation out-lawing hunting with dogs draws closer, many animal rights campaigners fear the aggressive tactics of bloodsports enthusiasts are only the beginning.