{"id":587009,"date":"2026-05-16T08:46:10","date_gmt":"2026-05-16T08:46:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/587009\/"},"modified":"2026-05-16T08:46:10","modified_gmt":"2026-05-16T08:46:10","slug":"essex-farmer-terrorised-by-machete-wielding-hare-coursers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/587009\/","title":{"rendered":"Essex farmer terrorised by machete-wielding hare coursers"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The farmer, who looks after 1,350 acres (546ha) of land, described how the offenders had armed themselves with catapults and machetes in some incidents.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">He has also been trapped in a barn, shoved off his bicycle and pinned against a tree.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Register added: &#8220;They come here to cause damage to anyone that gets in their way.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;It&#8217;s not just damage to crops, it&#8217;s the effects it leaves with us. It&#8217;s the worry, the fear of going out onto the farm.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Both Essex Police and the National Farmers&#8217; Union (NFU) said incidents of hare coursing had increased in 2025.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">NFU vice-president Robyn Munt said there was &#8220;a lot of betting involved&#8221; and alleged there was Chinese involvement.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">She said: &#8220;There are significant amounts of money involved in this crime.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">While hare coursing, dogs are judged on how closely they can follow the twists and turns of the escaping animal.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">When trespassing is involved, it can lead to the disruption of crops and damage to land.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The farmer, who looks after 1,350 acres (546ha) of land, described how the offenders had armed themselves with&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":587010,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-587009","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/587009","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=587009"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/587009\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/587010"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=587009"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=587009"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=587009"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}