Last week there were multiple headlines that Chris Packham was the victim of “an arson attack” on account of his activism, after a Land Rover was set on fire outside his house in the New Forest.
The images released of Mr Packham’s gates going up in flames are graphic and it is a relief that no one was seriously hurt or the damage caused was not more extensive. This criminal behaviour is completely condemned.
However, Mr Packham’s response, and his efforts to try and manipulate the events into an attack on field sports communities has been nothing short of extraordinary. The suggestions made by Packham were then further fuelled by the usual suspects of Ruth Tingay, George Monbiot and Mark Avery leading to outlandish claims of "the Countryside Alliance should call off their thugs" being made.
Let us be clear about what actually happened; on the night in question a Land Rover Discovery was stolen by criminals and taken joy riding. The criminals then abandoned the car and, judging by the imagery from Mr Packham’s cameras, sought to destroy the evidence by setting the stolen car on fire.
Mr Packham lives on a remote road track, close to where the car was stolen, which was likely considered a convenient location to abandon the vehicle. There is no suggestion whatsoever that this was a targeted attack on Mr Packham. Indeed, what sort of field sports enthusiast would choose to blow up a perfectly working Land Rover?
Furthermore, what Mr Packham would have known, but chose to omit from his Twitter monologue on the incident, was that on the very same night, just up the road from his house on open heathland, another vehicle had been stolen and that too was set alight having also run over and killed a calf.
Police consider the two incidents to be linked. Yet, despite knowing this, Packham, and his friends at Wild Justice, chose to slander the field sports community again by suggesting it was a targeted deliberate attack when no such evidence exists.
Mr Packham will also likely have been aware that earlier this year, another stolen car was driven into riding stable yard less than a mile away from Packham’s house and, once again, set on fire.
These incidents, it seems, were not in anyway specific to Chris Packham, but he clearly doesn’t want you to know that because it doesn't suit his agenda.
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